Super

Payday Super in Xero & MYOB (From 1 July 2026): Setup, Clearing House & SLA Checks

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

If you run payroll in Xero or MYOB, the good news is that both already pay super electronically through a clearing house — you are not starting from zero. The change from 1 July 2026 is about timing and proof: super must be received by each employee's fund within 7 business days of the payday, not simply submitted by you. This guide walks through the practical setup and the checks to run in each platform before the deadline — and before the Small Business Superannuation Clearing House (SBSCH) closes 11:59pm AEST 30 June 2026.

First, the rule in one line. From 1 July 2026 employers must pay the super guarantee on payday (at the same time as wages), and a contribution is on time only if the fund receives it — with everything needed to allocate it to the member's account — within 7 business days of the qualifying-earnings payday. The rate is 12% of qualifying earnings. That's the standard your Xero or MYOB process has to hit, every single pay run. Use the free payday super cashflow calculator to see what that 12% looks like per pay cycle before you touch any settings.

The mindset shift: "submitted" is not "received"

The single most important idea for software setup is this: clicking "approve super" in your payroll app is not the finish line. Under the old quarterly system, you had weeks of slack, so nobody watched the gap between submitting a super batch and the fund actually receiving the money. From 1 July 2026 that gap is the whole ballgame.

The journey of a super payment has three legs:

1. You approve the super batch in Xero or MYOB after a pay run.
2. The clearing house (the service that splits one payment across many funds) processes and forwards it.
3. Each fund receives and allocates it to the member account.

The 7-business-day clock runs across all three legs, and it counts business days, not calendar days. A long weekend or a public holiday eats into your window. So the job is not "can my software pay super" — both Xero and MYOB can — it's "does the full chain reliably land inside 7 business days, with proof."

Setting up payday super in Xero

Xero processes super through its built-in automatic super feature, which submits contributions to funds via a clearing house from within payroll. Your setup checklist for 1 July 2026:

• Confirm you're on the payday-super-ready version of Xero Payroll. Xero is updating its product for the reform; check Xero's current payday-super guidance for the exact steps and timing, because software steps change as the update rolls out. (Vendor docs are fine for how to click; the rules always come from the ATO.)
• Check every employee's super fund details are complete and current. A missing USI, ABN or member number is the classic reason a contribution can't be allocated — and if it can't be allocated, it isn't "received" in the sense the rule requires. Clean this up before 1 July.
• Review your automatic super authorisation and funding. Confirm the bank account that funds super batches has cleared funds available on each payday, because the clock starts at the payday, not whenever the money happens to be there.
• Run a test super batch. Process a dummy or real super run, record the submission date, then check each fund for the received date. Confirm the gap is well under 7 business days. This is the most valuable thing you can do before the deadline.

Setting up payday super in MYOB

MYOB pays super through Pay Super / its super portal, again routing contributions to funds via a clearing house. The same logic applies:

• Confirm your MYOB version is payday-super-ready and your Pay Super registration is active. See MYOB's current guidance for exact steps, which may update for 1 July 2026.
• Audit employee super fund records for complete USI/ABN/member-number data so contributions can be allocated on arrival.
• Check your Pay Super processing times and funding. Note MYOB's stated processing window and confirm it leaves room inside 7 business days once the fund's own allocation step is added.
• Do a dummy run and time it end-to-end, exactly as for Xero — submission date to fund-received date.

The clearing house SLA check (the part most people skip)

Whether you stay on your software's bundled clearing house or move to a commercial one, you need to know its service level in business days — submission to fund-received. This matters more than ever for two reasons:

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

Ask your provider, in writing, a single question: "From the moment I submit a super batch, how many business days until it's received and allocated by the employee's fund?" If the honest answer plus a safety buffer is close to 7, you have a problem to solve now, not in July. A faster clearing house is one of the few genuine fixes here.

One more timing trap: new employees and new funds get a longer window. The first contribution to a fund you haven't paid into for a given employee has a deadline of 20 business days after the qualifying-earnings payday, not 7. That's deliberate breathing room for onboarding — but don't lean on it for ongoing pays.

Don't forget STP reporting

Setup isn't only about moving money. From 1 July 2026, each payday you must report, per employee via Single Touch Payroll, the year-to-date qualifying earnings and the year-to-date super liability. Xero and MYOB handle STP for you, but confirm:

• Your STP lodgements go through cleanly on each pay run (no rejected or pending lodgements sitting unresolved).
• You're on the software version that reports the new payday-super STP fields.

If you're moving off the SBSCH, this is also your migration moment — the ATO's clearing house stops making payments after 30 June 2026, so your Xero or MYOB super processing (or a commercial clearing house) needs to be your live path well before then.

What happens if you miss the 7-day window

If a contribution isn't received in time, the shortfall moves into the new Super Guarantee Charge (SGC) regime, which is materially tougher than a late quarterly payment used to be. The short version: 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 is also a first-year education-first approach for qualifying-earnings days from 1 July 2026 to 30 June 2027 under PCG 2026/1 — employers who try to do the right thing and fix issues quickly won't be the ATO's compliance focus in that window. The full mechanics and the corrected penalty wording are in the new SGC and penalties guide. The cheapest path, by a distance, is simply landing inside 7 business days — which is what your software setup is for.

A 6-point pre-1-July checklist

1. Confirm Xero / MYOB 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.

Work through it in your own file and you'll know — not hope — that you're ready.

General information only — not financial, tax, superannuation, or legal advice. Software steps cited here are general and change as Xero and MYOB 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 the numbers in the free payday super cashflow calculator, then grab the Payday Super Readiness Checklist & Pack — a tickable, software-agnostic checklist (including 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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