
Are you uncertain whether you're meeting all your obligations as a small business employer? The easiest way to find out is to check for yourself.
Self-auditing your business has many benefits, and reduces the likelihood of any costly mistakes or disputes in the future.
Our interactive small business checklist will give you an indication of how you’re tracking, and help you identify areas for improvement.
Small business checklist
Please go here to access an accessible version of the small business checklist.
1. Awards, agreements and the National Employment Standards
2. Pay and conditions
3. Record-keeping and pay slips
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Do you include the following details on your employee's pay slip:
Do you include these details on the employee's records? Note: you can keep manual and/or electronic records.
4. Ending employment
Results
Looks like you're on the right track
Register for My account to get information tailored for your business. You'll also be able to:
- save results from our Pay, Shift, Leave and Notice and Redundancy Calculators
- submit an enquiry to ask for our help with complex questions or resolving workplace issues
- save your favourite pages from our site, including award summaries from Find my award.
Awards, agreements and the National Employment Standards
The terms and conditions in the NES are the safety net for a majority of workers in Australia. It’s important that you understand where your employees’ minimum entitlements come from (minimum wage, award or enterprise agreement) and what you need to do to meet your obligations.
To find out more you can use:
- Our
Find My Award
tool will help you find which award (or awards) apply to your business.
- Our
Introduction to the National Employment Standards fact sheet
will teach you about the minimum standards of employment in Australia, and how they apply to your business.
- Our
Casual, part-time and full-time employees page
sets out the different types of employment.
- Our
List of awards page
lets you browse the list of industry and occupation awards and quickly access the one that applies to you.
- Our
Awards and agreements page
explains how our modern awards and agreements work together to set minimum conditions for Australia workers.
- Our
Fair Work Information Statement page
lets you download the Statement and explains how you must provide it to your employees on their first day.
- Our
Casual Employment Information Statement page
lets you download the Statement and explains how you must provide it to your casual employees on their first day.
Pay and conditions
Remember, it's important employees get the right pay rate for the type of work they do. The following resources will help you learn more about minimum pay and conditions:
- Use our
Pay calculator
to work out pay rates, penalties and allowances.
- Our
Find my award
tool will help you find which award (or awards) apply to your business.
- Our
Pay page
provides information about minimum wages, penalty rates and allowances, making deductions, how to record these payments and more.
- Our
Becoming a permanent employee page
sets out the process for a casual employee to request conversion to full-time or part-time employment.
Record-keeping and pay slips
Remember, it’s important that employers get record-keeping and pay slips right. The following resource/s will help you learn more about record-keeping and pay slips:
- The Record-keeping and pay slips course in our
Online Learning Centre
will teach you more about your obligation to keep accurate records, and how you can easily keep your business records up to date.
- You can download our
Templates
to help you on a wide range of topics including payslips and record-keeping, employing staff, hours of work, balancing work and family, managing performance and ending employment.
- Our
Record-keeping and pay slips fact sheet
explains what records and information you need to keep (and the consequences for not doing so).
- Our
Pay slips and record-keeping page
gives you easy access to all our resources on pay slips and record-keeping, so you can find everything you need in one place.
Ending employment
It’s important to know the rules around termination and redundancy. The following resource/s below will help you learn more about ending employment:
- Our
Notice and Redundancy calculator
calculates entitlements when employment ends, including notice to be given and redundancy pay.
- The
Small Business Fair Dismissal Code
provides protection for small businesses (with less than 15 employees) against unfair dismissal claims, as long as an employer follows the code.
- Our page on
Ending Employment
provides information on notice and final pay, redundancy, bankruptcy and liquidation as well as unfair dismissal.