Enterprise agreements
An enterprise agreement is a pay and conditions agreement negotiated between an employer and its employees and approved by the Fair Work Commission; it replaces the award but can't leave anyone worse off overall. Where an agreement sets a rate for a classification, that rate becomes the compliance floor instead of the award. Agreements live under an employer, and only account admins can open them.
Drafts, active and archived
The list groups an employer's agreements by status:
| Group | What it means |
|---|---|
| Drafts — not setting a floor yet | Uploaded and read, but not yet activated. A draft never changes a result. |
| Active | Setting the floor for the awards, classifications and dates it covers. You can run several at once. |
| Archived | No longer used. Checks revert to the award wherever this agreement set the floor. |
Each card shows the awards covered (or "All awards"), how many rules it holds and its dates. "Activate" makes a draft or archived agreement active; "Archive" retires an active one; "Edit" opens the editor. A draft that still has open questions shows "N to confirm"; one still being read shows "Reading…"; one that couldn't be read shows "Unreadable".
With no agreements on file, compliance is checked against the modern award.
Upload enterprise agreements
"Upload agreements" walks through four steps in one form:
- Files — "Choose your agreement documents": PDF or Word, up to 10 at a time and 15 MB each. Each file becomes its own agreement. "Title (optional)" is used when you upload a single file; a batch is named from each filename and you can rename them afterwards.
- Coverage — "Which awards do these agreements cover?" Pick every modern award the covered employees would otherwise fall under; an agreement can cover several. Select none and the agreement applies to every award.
- Dates — "When do they apply?" "Operative from" and "Nominal expiry" are optional. Leave them blank and the agreement applies to every pay period; set them and it only sets the floor for periods inside the window.
- Confirm — "Ready to upload" summarises the documents, awards and dates. "Upload & read" saves each document as a draft.
After upload, each draft is read in the background. You can leave the page; the list updates itself as each one finishes. A file already uploaded to your account is skipped rather than duplicated, and one unreadable file in a batch doesn't stop the others.
Reading the agreement
FairCheck reads the pay terms out of each document and maps them onto the classifications of the covered awards. The agreement's page shows one of four states:
| State | What to do |
|---|---|
| Reading the agreement — its pay terms will appear here shortly. | Wait; the page updates on its own. |
| A few things need confirming | Some details didn't look right. Answer the questions before activating. |
| Extracted N rules from the uploaded document | The read was clean, or its questions were answered. Review and activate. |
| No pay terms found in the document | The file may be a scan that couldn't be read, or the rates may sit in an attachment. Enter them by hand in the editor; compliance uses the award until you do. |
| We couldn't read this document | The read failed; the reason is shown underneath. |
A few things to confirm
Questions are raised only when the read left gaps or produced something that looks wrong — a rate below the award minimum, a rate that looks like a weekly or annual figure, a rate read with low confidence, a classification the agreement never mentioned, a penalty missing from an otherwise complete table, or a leave loading that reads as a fraction. A clean read asks nothing.
The wording may be tidied by AI, but what each answer writes to is fixed by FairCheck, and no question can supply a value on your behalf. Answer what you can from the document and press "Save answers"; "Skip for now" leaves them open.
Leave an answer blank if the agreement doesn't say — the award applies, which is always safe. A rate answered below the award minimum is rejected with a message rather than silently raised, so you can check the document.
Details
On the edit page: "Title", "Operative from", "Nominal expiry" and "Replaced or terminated on" (leave blank while the agreement is still in operation). Edits change the agreement in place; other agreements are untouched.
Award coverage
Every modern award the covered employees would otherwise fall under. Changing this changes which classifications you can set rates for. An agreement must cover at least one award to be saved from the editor.
Classification rates
Where the agreement sets a rate, it replaces the award minimum; classifications not listed fall back to the award. The editor shows one row per classification of each covered award with the award floor beside it. Enter the agreement's ordinary hourly rate in "Base $/hour"; leave a row blank and that classification uses the award minimum. "Casual $/hour" is optional — the 25% loading is applied to the base when it's blank.
The agreement's page shows each rate with its "Source":
| Source | What it means |
|---|---|
| Read from document | Extracted from the uploaded file. |
| Confirmed by you | Set through the questionnaire. |
| Entered by hand | Typed in the editor. |
The floor a payslip is checked against is never below the award, even if an agreement rate was entered too low.
Penalties & loading
Percentages of the base rate, the way the FWC writes them — 150 means time and a half — for "Saturday", "Sunday", "Public holiday", "Overtime first", "Overtime after", "Evening" and "Night", plus "Leave loading %". Leave one blank and the award's rate applies (shown as "Award", or "Award (17.5%)" for leave loading). FairCheck always enforces whichever is higher.
Allowances
The agreement's page lists each allowance the read found, with its amount and unit. If none is recorded, the award's allowances apply. In the editor, "Allowances, shift windows & overtime" is edited as JSON; only those three keys are read from there, so the rates and penalties above are never affected.
Two agreements covering the same people
If another active agreement covers the same award and sets rates for the same classifications, the agreement's page shows "Two agreements claim the same employees", and activating one warns you. FairCheck won't guess between them: affected payslips are flagged for review instead of priced. Archive one, or narrow their award coverage, or pin the right agreement on the person or the payslip.
How an agreement is chosen
For each payslip, FairCheck considers the employer's active agreements that cover the person's award and are operative on the pay period's start date. An agreement is operative from its start date until it is replaced or terminated: passing its nominal expiry does not end it, so FairCheck keeps checking against it. Record the date on the agreement's edit page ("Replaced or terminated on") when it stops applying. A newer agreement that started after an older one's nominal expiry replaces it automatically. Of those, the one that actually sets a rate for the person's classification is used. If none does, the award sets the floor; if more than one does, the payslip is flagged for review as above.
You can override the automatic choice:
- On the person's record, the "Enterprise agreement" select pins one agreement for every payslip of theirs; "Auto-select" restores the choice above. See Employees.
- In the confirmation wizard you can choose an agreement for a single payslip. See Confirm payslip details.
Wherever an agreement is silent — a classification with no rate, a penalty left blank, no allowances — the award applies.
Archive and delete
"Archive" keeps the record and stops it setting a floor; compliance reverts to the award. "Delete this agreement" removes it: payslips checked against it keep their results but lose the link.