Fair Work on warpath over slack payslips, poor record-keeping

Small business pay practices have become a target for Fair Work and big fines await those with compliance shortfalls, says KeyPay co-founder and head of product Phil Bernie. Speaking on this week's Accountants Daily podcast, Mr Bernie said millions in underpayment by big companies captured headlines but Fair Work was putting small business pay records under the microscope too. "There's a trend particularly in agriculture where Fair Work are coming in and doing audits and reviewing farmers," Mr Bernie said. "Pay accuracy is one thing they're big on, but we saw the other day $20,000 fines being issued for record keeping. "You don't have to be employing 2,000 or 3,000 people to be on the radar for Fair Work. They are going out and targeting specific industries and you could just be employing 20 or 30 people and all it takes is for one person to query a pay slip or to raise a query with Fair Work and you could be on the radar."