Payroll is never just the pay run. There's the leave check nobody has time for, the classification progressions tracked by hand, the portable long service leave return that takes half a day to format, and the 40 employee files that all need the same fix, one click at a time.
Pay Cat Toolbox is nine automations for the worst tasks in SCHADS payroll. It's built for payroll admins, HR and finance teams at NDIS, disability and community services providers who already run their payroll in Pay Cat Payroll. This guide walks through all nine, using the live demos our Head Trainer, Tasya, ran in our Meet Pay Cat Toolbox webinar on 22 October 2026. Each section has a short video so you can watch the automation run.
Webinar on demand
Prefer to watch how to use the Toolbox?
See our Head Trainer, Tasya, run all nine automations live in the Meet Pay Cat Toolbox webinar.
Pay Cat Toolbox is a set of nine automations that connect to your Pay Cat Payroll account and do the time-consuming jobs around the pay run: compliance checks, reporting, bulk employee updates, timesheet preparation and month-end accounting. You open it inside Google Sheets, pick an automation, and it pulls your live payroll data in a few clicks. Some automations fix things you currently do by hand, and others give you reporting that isn't available directly in Pay Cat Payroll.
| Automation | Category | What it does |
| Quantum of Leave | SCHADS and compliance | Checks which SCHADS shift workers qualify for five weeks of annual leave instead of four, based on the shifts they actually worked |
| Classification Report | SCHADS and compliance | Shows every employee's current SCHADS classification and pay point, how long they've held it and the hours worked in it |
| Portable LSL Report | SCHADS and compliance | Selects the right pay categories for your state's portable long service leave scheme and formats the report ready to upload |
| Salaried Hours Report | Payroll and reporting | Compares the hours salaried employees worked, including leave, against their contracted hours |
| File Reviewer | Payroll and reporting | Scans employee files in Pay Cat Payroll for missing or mismatched setup, such as leave templates, tax file numbers, super and bank details |
| Redundancy Template | Payroll and reporting | Estimates an employee's redundancy payout and creates an employee-facing worksheet |
| Employee Updater | Employee and timesheet management | Pulls any employee fields into a sheet so you can edit them in bulk and push the changes back to Pay Cat Payroll |
| Timesheet Shaper | Employee and timesheet management | Reshapes CSV timesheet exports from external time and attendance systems into the format Pay Cat Payroll imports |
| Wage Accrual | Accounting | Calculates wages earned but not yet paid at the end of an accounting month, per employee and by pay category |
Three automations handle the SCHADS Award rules that are hardest to track by hand: shift worker leave, classification progression and portable long service leave.
Quantum of Leave checks every employee's actual weekend work and 24-hour care shifts and tells you who should be on four weeks of annual leave and who should be on five. It then compares that against the leave allowance template each person is on in Pay Cat Payroll, so you can see who needs to move.
This one matters because a lot of providers give five weeks to anyone who is technically a shift worker. Under the SCHADS Award, the extra week depends on what the employee actually worked during the leave year. As at November 2026, an employee qualifies if they work more than 4 ordinary hours on 10 or more weekends (clause 31.2), or work at least eight 24-hour care shifts (clause 25.8). You can't tell that from a job title or employment type. Read our full guide to SCHADS shift worker annual leave.
How to run it
What you get: a list of only the employees who need an adjustment. In Tasya's demo, three employees were on five weeks of annual leave but hadn't worked enough weekends, so they could move to the four-week leave allowance template. It works the other way too, flagging anyone on four weeks who has earned five.
It's most useful for providers with large numbers of shift workers, where checking eligibility person by person would take days.
The Classification Report pulls every employee's current SCHADS classification and pay point into one sheet, along with how long they've held it and how many hours they've worked in it. It gives you the numbers you need to review progression without tracking anyone's hours manually.
Progression through SCHADS levels and pay points can depend on service, experience or competency requirements. Across a large workforce, keeping on top of who's due to move is a big admin job, and missing a progression can turn into back pay.
How to run it
What you get: one row per employee showing:
The report gives you visibility, not a decision. Any progression still needs to be assessed against the relevant award requirements.
The Portable LSL Report picks the pay categories your state's portable long service leave scheme counts as reportable wages, then builds the return in the format the scheme needs for upload. It covers community services portable long service leave schemes in New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia and the ACT.
The standard portable long service leave report in Pay Cat Payroll is generic. It comes with a default list of pay categories, and because every scheme counts wages differently, you have to know exactly what to include and reselect it each time. Toolbox does that groundwork for you and saves your selection, so you set it up once.
How to run it
What you get: a report formatted for your scheme, with each employee's payroll ID, first and last name, email address, employment end date, gross ordinary hours and their scheme employee ID.
Good to know
These three automations check your payroll setup, compare salaried hours against contracts, and do the heavy lifting on redundancy calculations.
The File Reviewer scans your employee files in Pay Cat Payroll and returns only the employees with missing, invalid or mismatched setup. Instead of opening each file one by one, you get a list of what's wrong and a direct link to fix it.
We built it because "can you review our file?" is one of the most common requests our team gets. We looked at what customers wanted checked and turned it into a review you can run yourself, any time, ideally before you run payroll.
How to run it
What it checks
| Check | What it flags |
| Leave allowance templates | Employees with no leave allowance template, or one that doesn't match their employment type, such as casuals on a permanent template accruing full leave |
| Leave allowance template vs state | Employees whose leave allowance template is set to a different state from their residential address |
| Tax file numbers | Missing or invalid tax file numbers, which can slip through at onboarding and cause STP reporting issues later |
| Super details | Missing or invalid super fund ABN, fund name or member number |
| Bank details | Missing or invalid bank details |
| Employment type vs employment agreement | Employees whose employment type in their tax file declaration doesn't match the employment agreement on their file, which can pay the wrong ordinary hours |
| SCHADS hours | Employees whose standard hours per day are overridden to 7.6 instead of 10, which can trigger daily overtime too early |
| Payment configuration, pay rate templates, tax settings, pay schedules and primary pay categories | Missing or inconsistent setup in each of these areas |
What you get: a tab for each check plus a summary tab. The summary lists every flagged employee, their ID, a note on exactly what's missing, and a link straight to their file in Pay Cat Payroll.
Two issues Tasya sees often: an employee with no leave allowance template accrues every leave type on all their ordinary time earnings, and an employee moved from casual to permanent often gets a new employment agreement but keeps the old employment type in their tax file declaration. The File Reviewer catches both.
The Salaried Hours Report compares the hours each salaried employee actually worked, including leave, against their contracted hours and shows the variance. It brings together information you'd otherwise pull from your leave report, ordinary hours and overtime separately.
How to run it
What you get: one row per salaried employee showing worked hours, worked ordinary hours, overtime hours, paid leave hours, unpaid leave hours, contracted hours and the variance to review.
Good to know: this report is about hours against contract. It doesn't break down broken shifts, allowances or penalty rates.
The Redundancy Template builds a redundancy calculation worksheet for an employee from the termination details you enter, then creates an employee-facing HR worksheet you can hand over. Redundancy is one of the most complicated jobs in payroll, with redundancy pay, notice, outstanding leave and tax treatment all in play, and this puts it in one place.
How to run it
What you get: a redundancy calculation worksheet with the employee's details (termination date, date of birth, adjusted service start date, standard hours), their annual leave and long service leave payouts, severance pay, any other genuine redundancy payment, and the tax treatment including the tax-free portion. A second step generates the HR worksheet for the employee.
Good to know: the result is an estimate. It only includes pay runs that have already been finalised, so it won't include the pay run where the termination is processed.
The review automations above tell you what needs fixing. These two help you fix it in bulk and get timesheets from external systems into Pay Cat Payroll without reformatting them by hand.
The Employee Updater pulls any employee fields you choose from Pay Cat Payroll into a sheet, lets you edit them there, and pushes every change back in one go. It replaces opening each employee file and changing the same setting over and over.
Use it for jobs like changing leave allowance templates, moving a group of employees to new levels or pay points, updating hours per day or per week, enabling a setting, or adding a tag to everyone.
How to run it
Pair it with the review automations. In the webinar, Tasya took the casual employees the File Reviewer flagged as being on a permanent leave allowance template and switched them to the casual template in a few clicks. She then pulled hours per day and changed SCHADS employees set to 7.6 hours back to 10.
Good to know: before a large update, make a copy of the spreadsheet or duplicate the generated data tab, so you have a clean version to fall back on.
The Timesheet Shaper converts CSV timesheet exports from external time and attendance or rostering systems into a file that's ready to import into Pay Cat Payroll. It's for providers whose system doesn't have a direct integration with Pay Cat Payroll and who currently fix columns, headings and formatting by hand every pay period.
It handles the parts that usually need manual work, including sleepover shifts, overlapping shifts and kilometre allowances. For providers processing large volumes of timesheets, that's a real saving every pay period.
If your time and attendance system already connects directly to Pay Cat Payroll, you won't need this one.
The Wage Accrual automation calculates the value of wages your employees have earned but haven't been paid yet, so finance can recognise them in the right reporting period. It uses timesheet costings and pro-rated salaries from Pay Cat Payroll, so nobody has to work out accruals employee by employee.
The problem it solves: your accounting month often ends halfway through a pay period. Employees have worked days in that month, but those wages won't be processed until the next pay run.
How to run it
What you get: two sheets.
It's most useful for organisations with larger workforces or multiple pay schedules, where month-end accruals take the longest.
As at November 2026, Pay Cat Toolbox costs an extra $2 per employee per month on top of your Pay Cat Payroll subscription, and all nine automations are included. You don't pay separately for each one. Billing is based on your active employee count. See the Pay Cat Toolbox page for current pricing.
No. Pay Cat Toolbox is an upgrade to your existing Pay Cat Payroll subscription, and you can cancel it at any time.
Pay Cat Toolbox is only for Pay Cat Payroll customers. You need an active Pay Cat Payroll subscription and a Pay Cat API key. It connects only to Pay Cat Payroll, not to other HR or payroll platforms.
No paid subscription is needed. Pay Cat Toolbox runs in Google Sheets, and a free Google account works. Once it's installed, type sheets.new into your browser's address bar to open a new sheet and run it from there.
No. Pay Cat Toolbox runs in Google Sheets only. You can export any report it generates from Google Sheets to Excel (XLSX) afterwards.
No. You connect your API key once. In each new sheet, you just select your business.
No. Timesheets are always calculated at the pay level set on the employee's file in Pay Cat Payroll.
No. Every automation runs from menus inside Google Sheets, under Extensions, then Pay Cat Toolbox.
Already using Pay Cat Payroll? Install Pay Cat Toolbox from the Google Workspace Marketplace, connect your API key under Pay Cat Toolbox, then Pay Cat Settings, and run your first automation. The Pay Cat Toolbox setup guide walks you through it.
Not a Pay Cat customer yet? Book a demo and we'll show you around Pay Cat Payroll and Toolbox together.
Want the full walkthrough? Watch the Meet Pay Cat Toolbox webinar on demand.
Pay Cat are payroll specialists for SCHADS and community services employers. Pay Cat Payroll runs on our SCHADS Award template, which interprets the award automatically, and Pay Cat Toolbox adds the reports payroll teams usually build by hand.
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Pay Cat has changed our lives. I can sleep now.
Natalie, NDIS Provider
Not on Pay Cat Payroll yet? It runs on our SCHADS Award template, which interprets the award automatically, so your team stops checking every shift by hand.
Disclaimer: This article is general information only and does not constitute legal or professional advice. Award requirements, portable long service leave rules and pricing can change. Consider your specific circumstances and seek advice where needed.