SuperStream Superannuation Contribution Reporting

SuperStream is a set of standards introduced by the Australian Government that require employers to do the following:

capture additional information about employees’ choice of superannuation fund
pay superannuation contributions electronically via the banking system
report new fund members and remit superannuation contributions to funds in a format that is mandated under the standard, rather than a format that is dictated by individual funds.

The Payroll module provides support for compliance with the SuperStream standard by providing the ability to create SuperStream contribution files that comply with the SuperStream Alternative File Format (SAFF). This file format is accepted by SuperStream compliant payment clearing houses and service providers who facilitate remittance and payment of superannuation contributions between employers and superannuation funds.

Superannuation funds must also accept the file format if a payroll company is remitting contributions directly to a fund. Once the SuperStream bridging solutions period expires, the file format will continue to be supported by clearing houses and therefore payroll companies will be able to continue using the SuperStream Alternative File format to remit super contributions via clearing houses or other SuperStream service providers.

SuperStream contribution files include the following information:

details identifying the pay company paying that is remitting and paying superannuation contributions
details identifying each payee whose superannuation contributions are being reported, such as their name, fund membership/policy number, contact and address details
a breakdown of each payee's accrued superannuation contributions by contribution type (i.e. SG contributions, salary sacrifice contributions, employer additional contributions, contributions under an award, payee contributions from gross earnings) for the corresponding contribution period
payment details identifying the payment method and bank account into which the contributions reported in the file were paid - this is only required if a payment is made directly to the fund rather than being facilitated by a service provider.

A payee will be included in a SuperStream contribution file if the payee has accrued superannuation contributions against the fund to which contributions are remitted for the corresponding contribution period. If the payee is not enrolled with the fund, the fund will use the payee details that are provided in the contribution file to enroll the payee. The fund will return a policy/member number that the fund uses to uniquely identify the payee. On receiving the policy/member number, the number should be added against the relevant superannuation fund on the payee's superannuation details (for more information, see Updating Superannuation Details). Alternatively, the payee may already have been enrolled with the fund by another employer, in which case the payee will need to provide their existing policy/member number which should be recorded against the relevant superannuation fund.

If any of the payee's details change after the payee is enrolled with the fund, the updated details will be included in the next SuperStream contribution file in which the payee is included. The fund will automatically update the payee's details in their records based on any differences between their current records and the information supplied in any subsequent contribution remittance.

SuperStream Batch Process

SuperStream contribution files are created via a SuperStream batch process.The batch process gathers information about the following:

SuperStream service provider who is to facilitate remittance of superannuation contributions and, depending on the service provider, the payment of the contributions to superannuation funds
superannuation fund(s) to which superannuation contributions will be remitted
contribution period to which the superannuation contributions correspond
payees who accrued contributions to the selected fund(s) for the selected contribution period
superannuation contributions of each type that have been accrued by the payees included in the batch.

If the service provider that is chosen when creating the SuperStream batch only facilitates remittance of contributions to funds but not the payment of the contributions, the SuperStream batch also captures the payment details that are needed to allow funds to reconcile the remitted superannuation contributions with the payment of those contributions.

Batch Creation Stage

At the batch creation stage, you are prompted for the following information that is required to create a new SuperStream batch:

the pay company that is remitting contributions
the contribution payment period that defines the payment periods that are available for reporting
the payment period for which contributions are to be remitted
the SuperStream service provider to be used for facilitating the remittance of the contributions.

Once the abovementioned information has been specified, you can search for superannuation funds that are to be included in the batch. The system will return a list of superannuation funds that are linked to the selected service provider and contribution payment period/payment period, where there are accrued contributions against those funds for the selected period that are yet to be remitted. You can choose one or more of the funds to be included in the SuperStream batch, depending on whether you want the resulting SuperStream contribution file to include remittance of contributions for one fund or multiple funds. For example, if your business uses a clearing house to interact with funds, you might want to remit all superannuation contributions for all funds in a single SuperStream contribution file, which can be sent to the clearing house for processing. The clearing house will then use the information in the file to forward on individual remittance messages to each of the relevant funds.

Contribution Information Stage

At the Contribution Information stage of the process, the system displays information, including the pay company, payment period, unique batch number and the monetary grand total of contributions that will be remitted. You can download a detailed report of the contribution information that will be written to the contribution file that will be created when the SuperStream batch is closed. This report includes the following information:

the names and details of each payee who is included in the batch
a breakdown of each payee's superannuation contributions accrued for each fund included in the batch, broken down by contribution type
total contribution amounts for each fund included in the batch as well as batch contribution total.

The report can be used to check the contributions that will be paid and remitted.

If any of the funds included in a batch do not support remitting of negative contribution amounts, the report will identify which payees in the batch had a negative total contribution accrual for the contribution period. Such payees will not be included in the SuperStream contribution file and an alternative process, as agreed between your business and the fund, must be used to adjust the payees' superannuation accruals.

If the SuperStream service provider that applies to the batch facilitates the payment of the superannuation contributions to superannuation funds, you can close the batch at this point. This will generate a superannuation contribution file which you can download at this point or you can choose to download the file at a later stage from the Portal > Pay Australia > Pay Process > SuperStream screen.

If the SuperStream service provider that applies to the batch facilitates remittance of superannuation contributions but does not facilitate the payment of the contributions, there is an additional stage before the batch can be closed and the superannuation contribution file can be generated (for more information, see below).

Payment Information Stage

The Payment Information stage of the process applies only if the SuperStream service provider for the batch is a remittance only provider that handles the remittance of contributions but not the payment of contributions.

At this stage of the process, the system displays the total contribution amount that must be paid to each superannuation fund that has been included in the batch. These payments need to be made directly to each fund via the banking system and the following information must be specified against each fund before the batch can be closed and the superannuation contribution file can be generated and downloaded:

payment method (BPAY, direct debit or direct credit)
payment date (not applicable for direct debit)
payment/customer reference number
BPAY biller code (for BPAY transactions only).

Once the abovementioned information has been specified against each fund in the batch, you can close the batch. This will generate a superannuation contribution file which you can download at this point or you can choose to download the file at a later stage from the Payroll > Pay Process > SuperStream screen.

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