Super

Payday Super in QuickBooks & Reckon (From 1 July 2026): Setup & Deadline Checks

From 1 July 2026, super must be received by each employee's fund within 7 business days of payday. A plain-English setup guide for QuickBooks Online and Reckon employers — super processing, clearing-house turnaround, STP reporting and the checks to run before the SBSCH closes 30 June 2026.

If your payroll runs in QuickBooks Online or Reckon, you already pay super electronically — both submit contributions to funds through a clearing house. What changes on 1 July 2026 is the deadline and the proof: super must be received by each employee's fund within 7 business days of payday, not merely lodged by you. This guide covers the practical setup and the deadline checks to run in each platform — and to do it before the Small Business Superannuation Clearing House (SBSCH) closes 11:59pm AEST 30 June 2026.

The rule, plainly: from 1 July 2026 employers must pay the 12% super guarantee on payday (alongside wages), and a payment counts as on time only if the fund receives it — with the detail needed to allocate it to the member — within 7 business days of the qualifying-earnings payday. Counted in business days, not calendar days. Everything below is about making your QuickBooks or Reckon process hit that mark consistently. See exactly what 12% costs per pay cycle with the free payday super cashflow calculator.

"Lodged" is not "received" — why this is the whole game

Under the old quarterly rules you had a comfortable buffer, so almost nobody measured the time between submitting a super batch and the fund receiving it. From 1 July 2026 that gap is the entire compliance question.

A super payment travels three legs, and the 7-business-day clock covers all of them:

1. You approve and submit the super batch in QuickBooks or Reckon.
2. The clearing house processes and forwards it to each fund.
3. Each fund receives and allocates it to the member account.

Because the count is in business days, a Friday payday before a public-holiday Monday quietly shortens your real window. So the goal isn't "can my software pay super" — both can — it's "does the full chain reliably land received inside 7 business days, with evidence I can point to."

Setting up payday super in QuickBooks Online

QuickBooks Online processes super electronically to funds via a clearing house from inside payroll. Your pre-1-July checklist:

• Confirm you're on the payday-super-ready version of QuickBooks Online Payroll. QuickBooks is updating for the reform — follow QuickBooks' current payday-super guidance for the exact steps, since they change as the update lands. (Vendor docs are fine for the how-to-click; the rules come from the ATO.)
• Audit every employee's super fund details — fund USI/ABN and member number must be complete and correct. A contribution that can't be allocated isn't "received" in the way the rule demands.
• Check your super funding. Make sure the bank account that funds super has cleared money available on each payday, because the clock starts at payday.
• Run a test super batch and record submission date vs each fund's received date. Confirm the gap sits well under 7 business days. This single test is the most useful thing you can do before the deadline.

Setting up payday super in Reckon

Reckon (Reckon One / Reckon Accounts payroll) also lodges super electronically to funds through a clearing house. Same discipline:

• Confirm your Reckon product and version are payday-super-ready and your super/clearing-house registration is active. See Reckon's current help guidance for exact steps, which may update for 1 July 2026.
• Clean employee super fund records (USI/ABN/member number) so allocations succeed on arrival.
• Note Reckon's stated super processing time and confirm it leaves room inside 7 business days once the fund's allocation step is added on top.
• Do a dummy run and time it end-to-end — submission date to fund-received date — exactly as for QuickBooks.

The deadline check that actually protects you: the clearing-house SLA

The make-or-break number is your clearing house's turnaround in business days, submission to fund-received. Whether you use your software's bundled clearing house or a commercial one, get this confirmed in writing.

Two facts make it urgent:

• The deadline is received-by, not sent-by. A slow clearing house can blow your deadline even if you submitted on payday.
• From 1 July 2026, funds must allocate (or return) contributions within 3 business days — faster than the old 20 — but that step still sits inside your 7-business-day window, so don't treat the fund leg as instant.

Ask your provider one blunt question: "From when I submit a super batch, how many business days until the employee's fund has received and allocated it?" If the answer plus a safety buffer is anywhere near 7, fix it now. A faster clearing house is one of the few real levers you have.

And remember the onboarding exception: the first contribution to a new fund for a new employee has a longer deadline of 20 business days after the qualifying-earnings payday (this also covers exceptional-circumstances determinations). Useful for new starters — but not something to rely on for ordinary pay runs.

STP: the reporting half of setup

From 1 July 2026, each payday you must report — per employee, via Single Touch Payroll — the year-to-date qualifying earnings and year-to-date super liability. QuickBooks and Reckon lodge STP for you, but confirm:

• Every pay run's STP lodgement goes through cleanly (no rejected or stuck lodgements).
• You're on the version that reports the new payday-super STP fields.

This is also your SBSCH-migration moment. The ATO's clearing house can no longer make payments after 30 June 2026, so your QuickBooks or Reckon super processing (or a commercial clearing house) must be your live, tested path well before then.

What missing the window costs

If a contribution isn't received in time, the shortfall falls into the new Super Guarantee Charge (SGC) — tougher than a late quarterly payment ever was. In brief, the SGC for a payday is built from the SG shortfall, notional earnings (interest, compounded daily), an administrative uplift (initially 60%), and a possible choice loading. There's a first-year education-first approach under PCG 2026/1 for qualifying-earnings days from 1 July 2026 to 30 June 2027 — employers genuinely trying to comply and fixing issues quickly won't be the ATO's compliance focus in that period. The full breakdown, with the corrected penalty wording, is in the new SGC and penalties guide. The cheapest outcome by far is simply landing inside 7 business days — which is exactly what your setup work buys you.

A 6-point pre-1-July checklist

1. Confirm QuickBooks / Reckon is on the payday-super-ready version.
2. Clean every employee's super fund details (USI, ABN, member number).
3. Get your clearing-house turnaround in business days, in writing.
4. Run a dummy super batch and time submission → fund-received.
5. Confirm STP lodges the new YTD QE + YTD super liability fields each pay.
6. Migrate off the SBSCH before it closes 30 June 2026.

Tick these off and you'll know you're ready rather than guessing.

General information only — not financial, tax, superannuation, or legal advice. Software steps cited here are general and change as QuickBooks and Reckon update for the reform; confirm the exact setup in your provider's current guidance and verify all obligations with the ATO and a registered tax or BAS agent before acting.

Next steps: run your figures through the free payday super cashflow calculator, then get the Payday Super Readiness Checklist & Pack — a software-agnostic, tickable checklist with a clearing-house SLA worksheet and a dummy-run log so nothing slips before 1 July 2026. For the full picture, start at the Payday Super pillar guide.

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