Pay Cat Toolbox · Quantum of leave report
Four weeks or five? Know who's owed the extra week.
If you pay staff under the SCHADS Award, some of them count as shiftworkers for annual leave and are owed 5 weeks, not 4. Toolbox checks every permanent employee's payslips from the past year and shows you who qualifies, who doesn't, and what to change.
Checked against SCHADS Award clause 31.2
$2 per active employee per month, added to your Pay Cat Payroll plan. No new contract.
Not on Pay Cat Payroll yet? Book a demo
Why is SCHADS shiftworker annual leave so hard to get right?
Because it depends on when people work, not what their job is, and the answer can change with every pay run.
Only ordinary hours count
The weekend test is more than 4 ordinary hours. Five hours on a Saturday with three of them paid as overtime doesn't count, so the timesheet alone won't tell you.
It changes every pay run
Any pay run can take someone to 10 weekends or eight 24-hour care shifts. Staying on top of it by hand means checking every permanent employee, every pay run.
There's no report for it
Most payroll systems, Pay Cat Payroll included, can't report on it natively. Checking by hand means going back through a year of payslips for each person.
So the call usually gets made once, when someone is set up in payroll, and never checked again. That's how a team ends up with people on 5 weeks who aren't owed it, and someone on 4 who is.
See it in action
Watch Toolbox check a whole team for the extra week
Under a minute and a half. A year of payslips, checked in one run.
How does Toolbox work out who's owed 5 weeks?
Three steps. You only connect once.
1
Connect once
Install Toolbox in Google Sheets and paste in your Pay Cat Payroll API key. That's the most technical it gets.
2
Run the assessment
Open the SCHADS menu and click Run assessment. Toolbox reads every payslip from the past year for each permanent employee and checks both tests for you.
3
Review and update
See each employee's current leave, whether they qualify, the reason, and the change to make. Update their leave in Pay Cat Payroll, and Toolbox tells you when to check them again.
What does an extra week of annual leave cost?
One week of annual leave is 38 hours for a full-time employee. Put someone on 5 weeks who isn't owed it, and that week adds to your leave liability every year.
Per full-time employee
38 hours
of extra leave a year, if they're on 5 weeks and don't qualify.
12 employees at $35 an hour
About $16,000
of leave accrued each year that isn't owed.
Example only, at an assumed average of $35 an hour, before leave loading and on-costs. Part-time employees accrue leave pro rata.
From a real Pay Cat file
13 permanent staff. 13 on the wrong amount of leave.
This provider had 12 of their 13 permanent employees on 5 weeks of annual leave. The report found only one of them met the weekend test, and that was the one person on 4 weeks.
One run found an underpayment to fix before it turned into back pay, and 12 people accruing a week they weren't owed.
Who counts as a shiftworker for annual leave under SCHADS?
Under clause 31.2 of the SCHADS Award, an employee is owed an extra week of annual leave if, during the year their leave accrues, they meet either test:
More than 4 ordinary hours on 10 or more weekends At least eight 24-hour care shifts
Job title doesn't decide it. Only ordinary hours count toward the weekend test, and 24-hour care shifts (clause 25.8) apply to home care employees only. Former Nurses Award nursing assistants follow a different rule. Casual employees don't accrue annual leave, so Toolbox checks permanent staff.
Source: SCHADS Award (MA000100), clause 31.2, as consolidated 1 September 2026.
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Toolbox is ready to install. No demo, no waiting.
I'm a Pay Cat customer, take me to the Pay Cat Toolbox!What does it cost?
$2
per active employee per month
A provider with 40 active employees pays $80 a month.
✓Added to your existing Pay Cat Payroll plan, with no new contract
✓Billed like Pay Cat Payroll: only for employees active that month
✓Includes every Toolbox report, not just portable long service leave
✓New reports are added at no extra cost
Free webinar · Watch on demand
See portable LSL and SCHADS leave reports run live
Tasya, our Head Trainer, runs the portable long service leave report and the quantum of leave report on real files, start to finish. Recorded 8 October 2026.
Questions people ask before turning Toolbox on
Clause 31.2 of the SCHADS Award sets who counts as a shiftworker for annual leave. An employee who works more than 4 ordinary hours on 10 or more weekends, or at least eight 24-hour care shifts, during the year their leave accrues is owed an extra week: 5 weeks instead of 4.
No. Casual employees don't accrue annual leave, so Toolbox checks permanent employees only, full-time and part-time.
Any pay run can change the answer, so run it regularly. Toolbox gives each employee a next assessment date: a year out for anyone who already qualifies, and sooner for everyone else.
Pay Cat Payroll with Toolbox is $11 per employee, per month. That covers the payroll platform and all nine Toolbox tools, Employee Updater through to the SCHADS 5-Week Annual Leave Assessment. There is no separate fee per tool.
Already on Pay Cat Payroll? Adding Toolbox is an extra $2 per employee, per month, taking your subscription from $9 to $11.
Toolbox is charged on your active employee count, the same basis as your Pay Cat Payroll subscription, and it is only available to Pay Cat customers with an active API key. See our pricing page for the full breakdown and exact terms.
Install the app and click the link under "support" to access the set-up guide. Got questions? Reach out to support.
Yes, but a free Gmail account is enough, you don't need a paid Google Workspace subscription. Toolbox is a Google Sheets™ extension, so you'll need a Google account to install it and run it in a Google Sheet.
No. Everything runs from menus inside Google Sheets. If your team is comfortable in a spreadsheet, they're already comfortable in Toolbox.
No. Toolbox is built for Google Sheets only, not Excel. Once you've generated a report, though, Google Sheets can export it straight to XLSX format if you need the file in Excel.
Make a copy of the spreadsheet, or duplicate the generated data tab, before a big update. That way there's always a clean copy to fall back on if something needs a second look.
If an employee doesn't meet either test, the award only requires 4 weeks. Check their employment contract or enterprise agreement first, because if it promises 5 weeks, that still applies. Leave they've already accrued stays in their balance.
Ready to get Toolbox working for your team?
Two ways in, depending on where you are with Pay Cat.
Already with Pay Cat
Add Toolbox to my accountNo demo needed. Install straight from the Google Workspace Marketplace.
New to Pay Cat
Book a demoSee Toolbox running against a real business file, alongside the rest of Pay Cat.