Payslip compliance
This page is where every payslip in your account is checked against the relevant modern award, or against your enterprise agreement where one covers the employee. Payslips arrive here whether you upload them yourself or they come in from a connected payroll system, the API or a webhook. The page has three parts: the upload bar, the result tiles, and the list of payslips.
Checks run against the modern award by default. If an enterprise agreement covers these employees, its higher rates become the floor.
Check a payslip
Drop files onto the upload bar, or choose them, then click "Upload & check".
What you can upload:
- PDF, PNG, JPEG or TIFF files, or a .zip containing them.
- Up to 20 files in one go. Files inside a .zip count towards the same limit.
- Each document must be 15 MB or smaller.
Files of an unsupported type, or over the size limit, are skipped and the message after upload tells you how many were left out.
What happens after upload:
- Extraction starts straight away and you are taken to Confirm payslip details, which shows extraction progress. A file that holds several payslips is split into one payslip each.
- Once a payslip has been read it pauses at "Awaiting confirmation". The checks do not run until you confirm the award, classification and hours in the wizard. While any payslips are waiting, a banner at the top of this page says how many and offers a "Review details" link.
- If a single document holds more than 200 payslips, the ones beyond that limit are not extracted. The wizard tells you when this happens; split the file and upload the rest.
Duplicates: a file that is byte-for-byte identical to one this account has already uploaded is not processed again. The message after upload says how many files were already uploaded previously, and points you to the existing payslips in the list rather than re-checking them.
Check a payroll export
The upload bar also takes one payroll export spreadsheet — an .xlsx or .csv of up to 5 MB downloaded from your payroll system. It is read directly, with no extraction step, and every person and pay run in it becomes a payslip.
- Upload it on its own. A spreadsheet chosen together with other files is not uploaded, and the message says so.
- You're taken to a preview that shows what each sheet was read as, who each person is, and what the file can't check. Nothing is saved until you import. See Import a payroll export.
- Imported payslips wait at "Awaiting confirmation" like any other upload. Their Source shows as "Spreadsheet".
- A payslip already imported for the same person, employer, pay date and gross is not imported again.
"Redact in my browser first" does not apply to spreadsheets. Names and payroll refs are tokenised on our servers, as for any upload.
Redact in my browser first
Tick "Redact in my browser first" on the upload bar to remove names and numbers before anything leaves your computer. The tick is off by default, and your browser remembers your last choice for this account.
What happens depends on the file:
- PDFs with a text layer are read and redacted in your browser. Names, the employer and payroll numbers become pseudonyms that only your organisation can reverse. Only the redacted text is uploaded; the PDF itself never leaves your computer.
- Scans and photos (images, or PDFs with no usable text layer) are shown to you so you can draw black boxes over anything you want to hide. Use "Undo", "Clear", "Cancel" and "Done" in the "Draw boxes" dialog. Only the flattened image is uploaded. We suggest covering the tax file number, bank account and address. You can leave the employee's name visible so payslips can be grouped per person; names are tokenised on our servers as usual. If you finish without drawing any boxes, the page is uploaded as it is and FairCheck's own filter still removes what it recognises.
- TIFF and .zip files can't be redacted in the browser and are sent as they are.
The pseudonym key: text redaction needs your organisation's pseudonym key. An account admin generates it under Account settings. Paste the 64-character key into the "Pseudonym key" panel and click "Use this key". The key stays in your browser and is used to turn names into pseudonyms; FairCheck never receives it. If the account's key has since been rotated, the page tells you the key you hold is older and lets you paste the current one or continue with the old one. A "Download pseudonym mapping (CSV)" button lets you keep a record of which pseudonym stands for which name.
The result tiles
The tiles above the list count every active payslip in the account. Each tile is a link: clicking it filters the list to those payslips.
| Tile | What it counts |
|---|---|
| Checked | Every active payslip in the account. |
| Looks right | Payslips whose latest check found nothing to raise. |
| Worth checking | Payslips with something worth a closer look, including a possible underpayment. |
| Needs your input | Payslips only you can settle: a question to answer, no award or classification set, details awaiting confirmation, or a payslip held. |
| Possible gap | The dollar total of the shortfalls found across those checks. Clicking it filters to the payslips with a possible underpayment. |
A payslip with no award or classification is never counted as "Looks right". Without both there is no wage floor to compare against, so only super could be tested. It sits under "Needs your input" until you set the award on the employee's record (the row's "Set an award" link) and re-check.
The "Result" filter offers the same three outcomes first, then finer options (for example "Worth checking: under the minimum" or "Needs your input: no award").
FairCheck compares each payslip to published award rates and flags what's worth a closer look. It can't see rosters, side agreements or offsets, so a flag is a prompt to check, not a finding of underpayment.
A banner above the page counts payslips that are not checked because the person has no seat on your plan or the payslip couldn't be matched to anyone. Show them lists them, and admins get Add seats (or See plans on the free plan). See Billing and plans.
The payslip list
The list shows one row per payslip, newest first, 25 to a page. The footer always shows "Showing x–y of n payslips" and, where there is more than one page, "‹ Previous" and "Next ›" links.
Columns:
- Employee — the name read from the payslip. Click it to open the payslip result. An "Archived" badge appears on archived rows.
- Source — where the payslip came from: "Upload", "Spreadsheet", "Xero", "API" or "Webhook".
- Pay period — the period the payslip covers, with the pay date underneath ("paid 3 Jul"). Click the period to show only that pay run; a chip then appears above the list and its "×" clears it.
- Award — the award code and classification the payslip is checked against. This is the payslip's own award if one was set on it (marked "override" when it differs from the employee's), otherwise the employee's. If neither is set you see "Set an award", which opens the employee's record, or "Not set" if the payslip isn't linked to an employee.
- Result — "Looks right", "Worth checking", "Needs your input" or "Not checked yet". Under "Needs your input" a short line says what's needed: "Confirm the details", "No award set", "Answer a question", "Award not found", "Not checked — no seat" or "Not checked — who is this?".
- Possible gap — the shortfall from the latest check, or "—".
- Checked — the date the payslip was added.
Filters sit above the list and apply as soon as you change them:
- Search — "Search employee, pay run or award…". A name has to match the employee exactly; otherwise the text is matched against a pay run reference or an award code.
- Any result — one of the result labels above, plus "No award set", "Not checked yet", "Awaiting confirmation" and "Not checked (held)". Held payslips are ones your plan couldn't check yet — see Held payslips.
- Any date — "This month", "Last month", "This quarter", "This financial year" (1 July to 30 June) or "Custom range…", which reveals from and to date fields. The date filter uses the pay date, not the pay period.
- Any source and Any award — only values that actually exist in your account are offered.
"Clear" drops every filter. When filters are active a line under them summarises the filtered set: how many payslips, and how many have no issues, are worth checking, can't be verified yet, have possible issues, and the possible gap.
Archived payslips are a separate view rather than a filter. "Archived (n)" switches to it and "← Back to active payslips" returns. Archiving is bookkeeping only: an archived payslip keeps its data, its check runs and its retention timer; it just leaves the working list, the tiles and the confirmation wizard.
Bulk actions: tick the boxes on the rows you want (or the box in the header to select every row on the page). A bar appears showing how many are selected with:
- Archive (or Restore in the archived view) — reversible.
- Delete permanently — asks you to confirm first, because it cannot be undone. It erases the documents, the extracted data and every check run for those payslips. Deleting a payslip that was split out of a multi-payslip document also removes the container document once its last payslip is gone.
Re-check a payslip
Open a payslip and use "Re-run check" in its sidebar. The check is re-run from the stored, redacted data, so it still works after the original document has been purged. If a payslip has never been evaluated, the document is re-read instead.
To change the award, classification or hours before re-running, use "Change award or level", which reopens Confirm payslip details for that one payslip.
Once a payslip's extracted data has been purged at the end of its retention period it can no longer be re-run or edited; the page tells you so.