XBert Type: Standard
Accounting Software: Xero, MYOB, QuickBooks Online
Country Restriction: Australia only
Risk Type: Payroll Risk
Business Function: Payroll
Overview
This XBert checks whether the superannuation you owe for a payroll period has actually been paid. It compares the super recorded against your payroll with the super payments leaving your accounts, so you can settle employee super on time and avoid late-payment penalties from the ATO.
What it does
For each super due period, this XBert works out how much superannuation your payroll generated and then checks how much has been paid. It looks at:
The superannuation calculated on your finalised (posted) pay runs.
The matching superannuation expense entries posted to your accounts.
The super payments made from your bank (spend money) against the Superannuation Payable account.
The balance left sitting in the Superannuation Payable account on your balance sheet.
If the super owed for the period is more than the super paid, it lets you know a payment is still outstanding.
How it works
This XBert raises an alert when, for a super due period, the super owed from your payroll is greater than the super that has been paid and reconciled. In plain terms, it tells you when an amount of super still needs to go out the door.
Super due dates changed on 1 July 2026 with the introduction of payday super. For periods before that date, the super guarantee was generally due by the 28th day of the month following the end of each quarter. From 1 July 2026, super is due each time you pay your employees, with seven business days from payday for contributions to reach their funds. XBert understands both patterns, and each due period is measured only against the pay runs that belong to it — one payday’s super is never mixed up with the next.
To avoid chasing you while a payment is still on its way, XBert waits until a due period is at least 14 days past its due date before assessing it — the statutory seven-business-day payment window, plus extra time for super clearing houses and data syncing. Only super that is genuinely still unpaid past its legal deadline raises an alert. See Why the alert waits 14 days below.
To keep the alert accurate, it deliberately ignores:
Due periods that are less than 14 days past their due date, so your payment (and its processing through a super clearing house) has time to land before any judgement is made.
Draft, voided, deleted or cancelled transactions. These are never counted as real super owed or super paid.
Pay runs that have not been finalised (posted), so unfinished payroll does not create a phantom liability.
Periods where the Superannuation Payable account on your balance sheet is already reconciled to zero. If nothing is sitting in that account, nothing is owing, so no alert is raised.
Situations where more than one super payment has been made for the period. These are left for you to review rather than flagged automatically.
Businesses that run payroll through a separate payroll platform (such as KeyPay or Employment Hero), because that super data is not held in your accounting ledger.
If you pay your employees’ super with every pay run — for example through auto super — you should rarely, if ever, see this alert: by the time a period is assessed, your payment has already been recorded and the Superannuation Payable account has cleared. If it does appear, it means a specific payday’s super still had not been paid more than two weeks after payday — check whether the payment went through, and that it has been recorded and reconciled in your accounting software.
The amount shown is the difference between the super owed and the super paid for the period. The alert automatically resolves once a matching payment has been recorded and reconciled against the liability — this is re-checked with each sync, so a payment you reconcile today typically clears the alert by the next day.
Why the alert waits 14 days
The intent of payday super is that super is paid at the same time as wages, so it is natural to expect an alert within a day or two of payday. XBert deliberately waits longer, for two reasons.
First, the legal test. Contributions are on time as long as they are received by your employees’ super funds within seven business days of payday — roughly nine to eleven calendar days. One or two days after payday, nobody is late yet: super paid on time through auto super or a clearing house is often still in transit, because those services can take several business days to draw the money and deliver it to each fund.
Second, what XBert can see. XBert reads your accounting ledger, so a super payment only becomes visible once the bank transaction has been recorded and reconciled against the Superannuation Payable account — not the moment it leaves your bank or arrives at the fund. Depending on how often the file is reconciled, an on-time payment can take several days to appear. Alerting one or two days after payday would flag many businesses whose super was paid on time but simply had not been coded yet, and those alerts would then resolve themselves a day or two later — noise rather than insight.
Waiting 14 days — the seven-business-day statutory window plus time for clearing houses, reconciliation and data syncing — means that when this alert appears, it is telling you something worth acting on: the super for that payday is past its legal deadline and still cannot be found anywhere in the ledger. And if the payment had in fact been made but not yet recorded, reconciling it clears the alert automatically on the next sync.
Example/Use Case
Ted runs an office supply business and pays his team weekly, with super processed through auto super each payday. For the pay run paid on Monday 6 July, his payroll generated $520 of super, but the clearing-house payment failed and was never re-submitted. Under payday super, that super should have reached his employees’ funds within seven business days. Two weeks after payday, XBert detects the $520 is still sitting unpaid in Superannuation Payable and alerts Ted. He re-processes the payment straight away and checks current ATO guidance on the super guarantee charge for late contributions, keeping penalties to a minimum.
Accounting software
This XBert runs on the major Australian-compatible accounting platforms: Xero, MYOB and QuickBooks Online.
Which countries it supports
Australia only.
Processes
This alert falls under the Payroll – Superannuation business area and helps you meet your employer super obligations. To resolve it:
Review the super calculated on your finalised pay runs for the period and confirm the amount owed looks correct.
Check whether the outstanding super has actually been paid to your employees’ super funds.
If a payment was made, make sure it has been recorded and reconciled against the Superannuation Payable account in your accounting software.
If the super is still owing, pay it as soon as possible — under payday super it should reach your employees’ funds within seven business days of payday (for periods before 1 July 2026, by the quarterly due date).
If you have already missed the due date, pay the outstanding super and check current ATO guidance on the super guarantee charge to limit further penalties and interest.
Once the super has been paid and reconciled, this XBert will resolve automatically. If you have reviewed it and no action is needed, you can mark the XBert as resolved.