The article provides guidelines about when to use the different work types and tags that we include as part of the pre-built pharmacy industry award package. To read further information about the pharmacy industry award, refer to Pharmacy Industry Award.
Key updates
Select the current financial year tab to see award updates for the 2023/2t financial year. All previous updates before this time you can find in the historical financial years tab.
Current financial year
August 2023
From 1 August, all employees are entitled to 10 days of paid family and domestic violence leave each year. The (Unpaid) Family and Domestic Violence Leave configuration settings under awards have been updated - the leave category is disabled from award leave allowance templates, and the work type is not enabled automatically for all employees. Please ensure that employees no longer use the unpaid leave category or work type.
July 2023We have updated the award to reflect the Fair Work Commission’s National Minimum Wage increase detailed in the Annual Wage Review 2022-23 decision and includes updates to expense-related allowances. You can find information on the Determinations here and here.
These changes come into effect from the first full pay period on or after the 1st July 2023. Please install these updates after you have finalised your last pay run before the first full pay period beginning on or after the 1st of July 2023. We have also updated the Community Service Leave category to make sure it pays at base rate.
Historical financial years
April 2023
Added clause 19.9, Broken Hill allowance; this includes a new pay category District allowance - Broken Hill, and a new tag Broken Hill allowance. Assign the tag when an employee's workplace is within the County of Yancowinna in New South Wales (Broken Hill)
We adjusted the rounding values for Permanent L1 16yrs, Permanent L1 17yrs, Permanent Pharmacy Student 1st Yr, Permanent L1 21yrs and over pay rate templates to match the pay guide rates for Saturday - 8:00am to 6:00pm, Overtime - Public Holiday and Overtime - Monday to Saturday - first 2 hours.
January 2023We have updated the Permanent Pharmacy and Casual Pharmacy pay conditions rule sets to make sure overtime incurred from Monday - Saturday pays at 150% for the first two hours and 200% thereafter on the defined period and not daily.
July 2022We have made an update to correct the Permanent L1 under 16yrs and Casual L1 under 16yrs pay rates to reflect the rates in the pay guide for the Permanent - Weekday Ordinary & Casual -Weekday Ordinary pay categories. We also made an update to correct the casual pay rates to reflect the rates in the pay guide for the Casual - Weekday 7:00pm to 9:00pm pay category.
We have updated the award to reflect the Fair Work Commission’s National Minimum Wage increase detailed in the Annual Wage Review 2021-22 decision. It also includes updates to expense-related allowances. You can find information on the Determinations here and here.
These changes come into effect from the first full pay period on or after 1st July 2022.Please install these updates after you have finalised your last pay run before the first full pay period beginning on or after 1st July 2022. We have also disabled Unpaid Pandemic Leave as this entitlement has now expired within this award. Additional information can be found on the Fair Work Australia website.
January 2022We have updated the Unpaid Pandemic Leave pay category and it now counts as service for entitlements under awards and the National Employment Standards. If any staff have used this category previously, please adjust their Annual, Personal, and Long Service Leave balances for any period of unpaid pandemic leave previously taken.
November 2021We have updated the award in line with the Australian Tax Office (ATO) requirements for Single Touch Payroll (STP) Phase Two reporting. We are now disaggregating the reporting of gross earnings into distinguishable categories. We have updated the Pay Category payment classifications in line with the ATO specification categories found here
August 2021We have made updates to the Unpaid Pandemic Leave allowance Templates so that the balance displays in weeks instead of hours in line with the Fair Work Commission's guidelines. Once you install the award update, all employees' Unpaid Pandemic leave balances will display in weeks, not hours. It will mean that an employee’s balance may now show as 76 weeks.
July 2021We have updated the award to reflect the Fair Work Commission’s National Minimum Wage increase of 2.5% detailed in the Annual Wage Review 2020-21 decision. It also includes updates to expense-related allowances. You can find Information on the Determinations here and here.
These changes come into effect from the first full pay period on or after 1st July 2021. Please install these updates after you have finalised your last pay run before the first full pay period beginning on or after 1st July 2021.
We have also made updates to the Family and Domestic Violence (FDV) leave category, so that the balance displays in days instead of hours in line with the National Employment Standards. Once you install the update, all employees' FDV leave balances will display in days, not hours. It will mean that an employee’s balance may now show as 38 days.
We made this update to make sure that any new installs of this award conducted since 1st July now capture the Super Guarentte (SG) increase from 9.5% to 10% for all pay categories. If you have installed this award between 1st July 2021 to 8th July 2021 for the first time, please make sure you select the No option to the Preserve Custom Pay Categories question. If you were using this award before 1st July 2021, then you do not need to select the No option.
December 2020We have updated the Permanent Pharmacy pay conditions rule sets in line with clause 23.3(b) - Annual Leave Loading. We have excluded the Overtime rules from the annual leave evaluation. The calculation paid will be the higher of either the shift earnings, not including overtime, or ordinary hours plus leave loading.
August 2020We have updated the award to reflect the High Court's decision on the accrual of personal/carer's leave. Which overturns the decision made by the Full Federal Court of Australia, with personal/carer's leave calculated on working days, not hours. You can find information on the decision here. As such, we have removed the Personal/Carer's (10 days) Leave Allowance Templates and updated associated Employment Agreements.
Please note, this update will not remove any of the above from a business where you installed the award before 25th August 2020. However, any new award installs from 25th August 2020 will not display personal/carer's (10 days) leave details.
July 2020We have updated the Permanent Pharmacy and Casual Pharmacy pay conditions rule sets to make sure overtime incurred from Monday - Saturday pays at 150% for the first two hours and 200% thereafter.
We have updated the award, as part of Group One Awards, to reflect the Fair Work Commission’s National Minimum Wage increase of 1.75% detailed in the Annual Wage Review 2019-20 decision. It also includes updates to expense-related allowances. You can find information on the Determinations here and here.
These changes come into effect from the first full pay period on or after 1st July 2020. Please install these updates after you have finalised your last pay run before the first full pay period beginning on or after 1st July 2020.
June 2020The pay conditions rule sets for Permanent Pharmacy Casual Pharmacy have been updated to make sure that when a leave work type is taken, the penalty and overtime rates are not calculated except for annual leave taken when calculating the higher of the penalties or loading. We will also not include the leave taken work-type hours in the period overtime rule calculation.
April 2020We have updated the award to reflect changes made as part of the Fair Work Decision around flexibility during coronavirus. The new schedule allows employees to take up to two weeks of unpaid pandemic leave. We have created a new Unpaid Pandemic Leave Taken pay category, leave category, and Unpaid Pandemic Leave work type.
Also, we have updated the rule sets, where necessary, to include/exclude the work type and leave category to some pay conditions. Further, we updated the Leave Allowance Templates to make sure the new leave category is enabled and is now accessible for employees to take this leave when required. Further, under this new schedule employees can take up to twice as much annual leave at a proportionally reduced rate if their employer agrees. You will need to manually adjust the employee's pay rate and leave balance to half in each pay run for the period of leave.
February 2020Due to recent changes to the interpretation of personal/carer's leave accrual under the National Employment Standards, we have made updates to the setup of the award. We have created a new Leave Category called Personal/Carer's (10 days) Leave. Also, we have created a new Leave Allowance Templates (LATs) specific to 10 days accrual per year for each state. Lastly, we updated any rules impacted by Personal/Carer's Leave with the new leave category.
October 2019We have updated the award to reflect the Fair Work Commission's decision to increase the base pay rates by 5% in addition to the Annual Wage increase for the following employees; Pharmacists, Experienced Pharmacists, Pharmacists in Charge, and Pharmacist Managers.
It is the second and final part of the increase of 2.5% from the first full pay period beginning on or after 1st October 2019. You can find further information on the determination here. We have also updated the Permanent Pharmacy and Casual Pharmacy pay conditions rule sets to include the pay rates for Sunday before 7:00am and after 9:00pm.
We have also created a new Pay Category for both Permanent and Casual employees which we have enabled in their respective pay rate templates. Lastly, an update to adjust the casual and permanent pay rates for Pharmacists, Experienced Pharmacists, Pharmacists in Charge, and Pharmacist Managers to reflect the rates in the pay guide.
June 2019We have updated the award to reflect the Fair Work Commission’s National Minimum Wage increase of 3% from its Annual Wage Review 2018-19 decision. It also includes updates to expense-related allowances. You can find Information on the Determinations here and here.
These changes come into effect from the first full pay period on or after 1st July 2019. Please install these updates after you have finalised your last pay run before the first full pay period beginning on or after 1st July 2019.
We have also updated the award to reflect the Fair Work Commission's decision to increase the base pay rates by 5% in addition to the Annual Wage increase to the following employees: Pharmacists, Experienced Pharmacists, Pharmacists in Charge, and Pharmacist Managers. The first part of the increase is for 2.5% from the first full pay period beginning on or after 1st July 2019. You can find further information on the determination here.
December 2018The setup of the Payroll Tax Exempt field on the Payroll Settings Pay Categories page was replicating the PAYG Exempt field rather than creating a unique identity; when installed on the business settings. We have carried out an audit across the platform and have resolved the issue with this update.<
October 2018We have updated the Casual Pharmacy pay condition rule set of clause 26.1(a)(i) exceeding 76 Hours in a shift period to include Saturday in the conditional action and exclude Sunday as this relates to Monday to Saturday only.
August 2018We have updated the allowance rate update for Kilometre Allowance - Car (above and below ATO limit). You can find further information at the ATO. We have also updated the pay set rule conditions for casual employees under clause 26.1(a) for working more than 76 hours per fortnight.
We have updated the award to reflect changes made as part of the Fair Work Decision 4-year review of modern awards. You can find more information on the determination here. Family and Domestic Violence leave applies from the first full pay period on or after 1st August 2018. You can find further information on the Fair Work website.
Employees, including part-time and casual employees, are entitled to 5 days of unpaid family and domestic violence leave each year of their employment. The five days renew every 12 months of their employment, but it will not accumulate if they do not use the full leave balance.
We have created a new leave category called Family and Domestic Violence Leave and a new Work Type called Family and Domestic Violence Leave taken. We have updated any impacted leave allowance templates and pay condition rule sets.
June 2018We have updated the award to reflect the Fair Work Commission’s national minimum wage increase of 3.5% from its Annual Wage Review 2017-18 decision. It also includes updates to expense-related allowances.
These changes come into effect from the first full pay period on or after 1st July 2018. Please install these updates after you have finalised your last pay run before the first full pay period beginning on or after 1st July 2018.
We have created new laundry allowance pay categories and rule conditions to reflect the ATO threshold maximum limits for claiming laundry (not dry cleaning) for deductible clothing under the award. You can find further information in the Cleaning of Work Clothing section of this ATO article.
We have reduced the Sunday 7:00am to 9:00pm penalty for permanent employees from 95% to 80%. We have also reduced the Sunday 7:00am to 9:00pm penalty for casual employees from 120% to 105%, inclusive of casual loading.
We have removed the Pay Rate Templates for Level three and Level four juniors as they are no longer active, as per the update dated 30th October 2017. We have updated the< Payment Classification settings for Allowance-based pay categories as per STP requirements.
We have created a new rule - 26.1(b) Apply Overtime - Over Advanced Standard Hours - Part-Time. The rule reflects the following provisions of clause 12.2:
- The hours worked each day;
- Which days of the week the employee will work;
- The actual starting and finishing times of each day.
Previously, we could only assess the number of hours worked per week for overtime purposes using the existing Apply Overtime - Over Standard Hours - Part Time rule. Now, however, we can assess the Advanced Standard Work Hours as set up within the employee's Pay Run Defaults screen. The rule will assess hours as follows:
- Any time worked on Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday, we wil deem overtime;
- Any time worked before the start times on Monday, Tuesday, Friday, and Sunday will will deem overtime; and
- Any time worked after the end times on Monday, Tuesday, Friday, and Sunday will deem overtime.
The rule only works where you have set up Advanced Standard Work Hours using start and finish times, not hours only. If you have not setup Advanced Standard Work Hours for a part-time employee, then we will deem all hours overtime.
May 2018We have included a rule for on site meal breaks to accommodate Clause 19.2 of the award. We have also updated the Long Service Leave leave templates to reflect the new Victorian entitlement period legislation Victorian entitlement period legislation, change the entitlement period from ten years to 7 years.
March 2018We have fixed any auto-meal break rules so that they do not apply to leave requests. We have updated allowance pay categories configurations; for example, changed payment classifications. Lastly, we created a Kilometre allowance pay categories - above and below ATO limits.
October 2017We have made an update to remove junior rates for Pharmacy Assistant Levels three and four. The award now only allows for levels one and two to include pro-rated junior rates. For more information, please refer to the Fair Work Determination here
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Installing the pre-built award package
To read details on how to install and configure this Pre-built Award Template, please review the following article. Before relying on the award information, users should carefully evaluate its accuracy, currency, completeness, and relevance for their purposes. You should also obtain appropriate professional advice.
Work types
The following lists out and explains the work types an employee can select on their timesheet.
A - F| Annual leave taken. | Choose this work type when annual leave was taken |
| Carer's leave | Choose this work type when carer’s leave was taken |
| Compassionate leave taken. | Choose this work type when compassionate leave is taken. |
G - L
| Kilometre allowance | You should use this work type where an employer asks an employee to use their own motor vehicle in the performance of their duties. You should enter the kilometres travelled into the Units field. Refer section 19.4 of the Pharmacy Industry Award. |
| Long service leave | Choose this work type when long service leave is taken. |
M - R
| No meal break | Normally, meal breaks are automatically added for shifts over 5h30m. Use this work type to indicate that no meal break was taken during the shift. |
| OT worked with no prior notice (1.5 - 4 OT hrs) | An employee that was required to work between 1.5 hours and four hours of overtime with less than 24 hours’ notice and not provided with a meal should add one unit of this allowance to their shift. Refer section 19.1 of the Pharmacy Industry Award. |
| OT worked with no prior notice (4+ OT hrs) | An employee that was required to work more than four hours of overtime with less than 24 hours’ notice and not provided with a meal should add one unit of this allowance to their shift. Do not add both OT worked with no prior notice (1.5 - 4 OT hrs)" and OT worked with no prior notice (4+ OT hrs), only the most relevant one. Refer section 19.1 of the Pharmacy Industry Award. |
| Public holiday not worked | Shift workers should choose this work type for public holidays that they elect not to work. |
S - Z
| School Student 2 hr Minimum Engagement | Choose this work type where, under clauses 12.12 and 13.5, part time and casual school students are eligible for a 2 hour minimum shift engagement as opposed to the standard three hour minimum shift engagement. |
| Sick leave | Choose this work type when sick leave was taken |
| Time in lieu leave taken. | Choose this work type when time in lieu leave is taken. |
| Time off in lieu of overtime | Choose this work type if the employee elects to accrue time in lieu rather than receive payment for any overtime for this shift. |
| Unpaid leave | Choose this work type when they take unpaid leave. |
Tags
The following tags are available for application to employees under the Pharmacy Industry Award.
A - F| Broken Hill Allowance | Assign this tag when an employees workplace is within the County of Yancowinna in New South Wales (Broken Hill) |
| Shiftworker |
Assign this tag if the employee you employ the employee as a shift worker. Refer to section 28.2 of the Pharmacy Industry Award for the definition of a shift worker. |
| Time in lieu of overtime | Assign this tag if the employee elects to always accrue time in lieu of being paid overtime. |
Assign this tag if the employee you employ the employee as a shift worker. Refer to section 28.2 of the Pharmacy Industry Award for the definition of a shift worker.