Payday Super didn't change your super bill. It called in a loan

Since 1 July 2026, employers have to get super into each employee's fund within seven business days of payday. The rate didn't change: it is still 12%, so the profit and loss barely moves. What changed is the cash. The old quarterly timetable worked like an interest-free loan from your staff's super funds, Payday Super has called it in, and most forecasts built before July still show the loan.

What the quarterly timetable was worth

Under the old rules, super on wages paid from July to September wasn't due until 28 October. October to December was due by 28 January, and so on around the year. On 27 October last year, a business could be holding a full quarter of super plus most of a month of the next one.

Nobody called that borrowing, but it behaved like borrowing: cash in your account that belonged to someone else, with no interest, no application and no repayment until the 28th.

Take an illustrative business with round numbers: $100,000 a month of wages that attract super, paid fortnightly, with super at 12%, so $12,000 of super a month.

The right-hand column is one fortnight's super ($12,000 × 12 ÷ 26), and it is only still owed at a month end when a payday falls in the last seven business days of that month.

Under the old timetable this business held $24,000 of super at an average month end, and up to about $47,000 on the day before each due date. Now it holds a fortnight's worth at most. The difference, roughly $20,000, now sits in its staff's funds instead of its own account, and it is not coming back.

Payday Super changed when super leaves the bank, not what it costs. Model it as a loan repaid, not a new expense.

2026–27 is the year the loan is repaid

This financial year is the odd one. Super for the June 2026 quarter still had to reach funds by 28 July 2026, and from 1 July super on every new payday was due within seven business days. A business that paid its June quarter in July paid two lots of super that month: $36,000 for April to June and about $12,000 for July's wages in our example.

Across 2026–27 that business pays super on about 15 months of wages, while its profit and loss shows 12. The extra three months is the loan being repaid. From 2027–28, cash paid and expense line up again.

That invites two misreadings.

Treating the squeeze as a cost. If a budget review adds a super increase because cash felt tight in July, the budget is now wrong. The rate is 12%, as it was last year, and the ATO's own guidance is that only the timing of payments changes. The one thing worth checking is the new base, qualifying earnings, against what your payroll counted before.

Treating October as an improvement. October, January, April and July used to carry a quarter's super in a single payment. Those lumps are gone. Comparing this October's bank balance with last October's flatters this year, because the money has already left in instalments since July.

Where forecasts built before July go wrong

Forecasts and budgets built in May or June, or rolled forward from last year's file, usually show super in one of two ways.

1. 1.
   Quarterly lumps on the 28th. Under Payday Super these overstate the cash balance in every month, by one to three months of super ($12,000 to $36,000 in our example), most of all at each quarter end. They also put the year's low point in the wrong month.
2. 2.
   Paid in the same month as the wages. This was too cautious before July and is now close to right. The exception is the last payday of each month, whose super can fall due in the next month.

Then come the second-order effects.

• Paydays bunch. Fortnightly pay gives two months a year with three paydays; weekly pay gives four months with five. Super now follows that rhythm, so those months carry more than a twelfth of the year's super.
• The low point moves. It used to sit in the month a quarter's super went out. Now it is more likely to be a three-payday month in which customers pay slowly, because wages and super go out on each payday while customers on 30- or 60-day terms pay later.
• Clearing takes days. The ATO's free Small Business Superannuation Clearing House closed on 1 July 2026, and super counts as paid when the fund receives it, not when a clearing house does. If yours needs three business days, the money has to leave your account within four business days of payday, not seven.
• Lenders see lower balances. A lender reading six months of bank statements now sees a lower average balance than a year ago. One lending platform estimated that this could cut the borrowing capacity of businesses on 5% to 10% margins by 7% to 15%, depending on the lender's model. Treat that as one estimate, but have the explanation ready before the credit team asks.

How to fix the model

The fix is small and mechanical.

• Keep the expense line. Super is 12% of qualifying earnings, in the period the wages are earned. Nothing about Payday Super belongs in the cost forecast.
• Drive the payment from the payroll calendar. Each pay run's super leaves within seven business days, sooner if a clearing house sits in between. In a monthly model, pay super in the month of the pay run, except for pay runs in the last seven business days of a month, whose super moves to the next month.
• Fix the balance sheet. Super payable at 30 June 2026 was the June quarter (unless it was paid before 30 June). From the end of July it should be no more than about one pay run's super.
• Re-test the headroom. Find the new lowest cash month and check it against your overdraft limit and any loan covenant, with room for a customer who pays late.

How to check a forecast in five minutes

Three tests show whether a forecast still has the old timetable in it.

1. 1.
   Super payable. At any month end after July, is it more than one pay run's super? Then the quarterly timetable is still in the model.
2. 2.
   Lumps. Is there a super payment in October, January or April of about three times the monthly amount? Same problem.
3. 3.
   The 2026–27 total. For a business that paid its June quarter in July, cash paid to super this year should be about 15 months of super against 12 months of expense. If the two match exactly, the July catch-up is missing. (If the June quarter was paid before 30 June, the catch-up sits in 2025–26, and this year's totals should match.)

The lesson outlasts super. Profit is a total; cash is a timetable. Any change to when money moves, whether super, BAS, customer terms or supplier terms, leaves the profit and loss untouched and rewrites the cash flow. A forecast that only checks the totals will miss every one of them.