Aged Care Award Interpretations in Astalty

Overview

Astalty's Aged Care Award interpreter processes approved shifts for workers employed under the Aged Care Award (MA000018) and translates worked hours into the correct pay-rate categories and allowance lines for payroll. The award is set per worker on their employment contract, and every interpretation surface — the Award Interpretation tab on timesheet batches, the Award Pay Report, the Award Playground and the payroll exports — interprets each worker under the award on their own contract. It does not replace the need for compliant rostering and HR practices.

Who this award covers

The Aged Care Award covers employees working in residential aged care — personal care workers, assistants in nursing, cleaners, laundry hands, food services staff and administration staff in a facility. Assistants in nursing moved into this award's direct care stream from 1 January 2025.

Two groups of people you might expect to find here belong elsewhere:

Putting a worker on the Aged Care Award

The award is set on the worker's employment contract:

1. Open the worker's User Profile and go to the HR tab.
2. Create (or edit) their contract and set Award to Aged Care Award.
3. Choose their Aged Care Classification — the Base Hourly Rate fills in automatically from the current award rates. You can override the base rate if you pay above award.

Classifications use the post-2024 three-stream structure rather than the old flat level ladder:

How your hours are interpreted

Shift loadings

A weekday shift attracts a loading based on when the shift starts. The loading applies to the whole shift, so a shift that starts at 8pm and runs past midnight stays on the night rate for its entire length.

Weekends and public holidays

A shift is classified by the day it starts, so a Friday night shift running into Saturday stays on the weekday night rate.

Ordinary hours and overtime

Ordinary hours are capped daily and across the pay period. Hours beyond a cap become overtime:

• Daily — full-time employees are capped at 8 hours on a day shift and 10 hours on a night shift. Part-time and casual employees are capped at 10 hours regardless.
• Weekly / fortnightly — 38 hours per week, or 76 hours per fortnight.

Overtime is paid at 150% for the first 2 hours and 200% after that. Saturday overtime is a single flat double-time band. Sunday overtime is 200% and public holiday overtime is 250%.

Casual employees

The 25% casual loading behaves differently on ordinary hours and on overtime, and this is the detail most worth getting right:

• On ordinary rates the loading is added — a casual working a Saturday is paid 150% + 25% = 175%.
• On overtime the loading is folded into the base before the overtime multiplier is applied — a casual's first overtime band is 150% × 1.25 = 187.5%, not 175%.

Casual employees also have a 2-hour minimum engagement (full-time employees have a 4-hour minimum), flagged as a scheduling alert.

Sleepovers

A sleepover attracts an allowance per night for every employment basis, and a rostered sleepover is expected to span between 8 and 10 hours — outside that range Astalty raises a scheduling alert.

How active work during the sleepover is paid depends on the worker's employment basis:

• Full-time — all active work is paid as overtime, with no minimum payment.
• Part-time and casual — active work is paid at ordinary time plus any applicable shift or weekend penalties, with the usual daily and period caps converting excess hours to overtime.

See How To Roster a Sleepover Support for the rostering workflow.

Broken shifts

A day with two or more work periods is treated as a broken shift. Broken shifts apply to part-time and casual employees only — a full-time worker with a split day is not treated as working a broken shift.

Work beyond a 12-hour span, measured from the start of the first portion to the end of the last, is paid at double time (200% permanent, 225% casual). This award sets no maximum number of shift portions and has no broken shift allowance, so the span is the only consequence Astalty applies.

Sleepover and active-overnight records are excluded from the span, so sleepover-adjacent work never reads as a broken shift.

Allowances

• Overtime meal allowance — one meal once a shift's overtime exceeds one hour, and a second once it exceeds four hours. Turned on at Settings → Scheduling → Meal Allowance; it is off by default.
• Laundry allowance — per shift, capped weekly, for workers with the laundry entitlement on their contract.
• Kilometre / vehicle allowance — per kilometre, for approved travel in a worker's own vehicle.

Allowance dollar values are indexed automatically each financial year.

Clause 15 allowances — leading hand, uniform, nauseous work and the cook/chef tool allowance — are not calculated. The leading hand allowance is all-purpose (added to the minimum rate before penalties), so it can be built into the worker's contracted Base Hourly Rate, which has the same effect.

Scheduling alerts

Astalty raises alerts while you roster, before the hours reach payroll:

• Minimum engagement — 4 hours full-time, 2 hours part-time and casual
• Minimum 10-hour break between shifts
• Broken shift span exceeded
• Sleepover span outside 8–10 hours
• Ordinary hours exceeded
• Insufficient days off — two full days per week, or four per fortnight, for full-time and part-time employees

Where you see the interpretation

• Award Interpretation tab on a timesheet batch — the per-worker breakdown for the shifts in that batch.
• Award Pay Report — the same breakdown across a full pay period.
• Award Playground (under Scheduling → Award Playground) — experiment with hypothetical work records for a worker whose contract is on this award, including sleepover and active-overnight scenarios.
• Timesheet exports and the Xero timesheet push — pay lines and allowances flow to payroll per worker.

Each worker's expanded view includes the interpretation trace showing which Aged Care Award rules were applied — which cap was reached, which loading was classified, and why.

Setting up Xero pay items

Pay items are mapped per pay group, and one pay group's mapping can only encode one award's rates. Aged Care Award staff therefore need their own pay group.

Whilst we cannot provide payroll advice based on your interpretation and application of the Aged Care Award 2010, these are the Pay Items and their suggested multipliers when setting up Xero pay items for an Aged Care Award pay group. You should refer to the Award, or seek professional and qualified advice, to ensure accuracy and compliance for your organisation.

For the mapping workflow itself, see Setup Pay Items and Employee Templates in Xero and Setup Pay Groups and Employees in Astalty.

Frequently asked questions

Why is my part-time worker's afternoon shift paid at the ordinary rate?

Because their shift sat inside the 6am–6pm span. Employees working less than 38 hours a week only attract a shift loading when the shift starts before 6am or finishes after 6pm. A full-time worker on the same roster line would receive the loading.

Why is my casual's overtime higher than the ordinary rate plus 25%?

Because on overtime the casual loading is folded into the base before the overtime multiplier, rather than added afterwards. The first overtime band works out at 150% × 1.25 = 187.5%.

Why didn't a broken shift apply for my full-time worker?

Broken shifts under this award apply to part-time and casual employees only. A full-time worker with two work periods in a day is not treated as working a broken shift.

Where do my aged care nurses go?

On the Nurses Award, with an Aged care — classification so they receive the higher aged-care nursing rates. This award has no nurse classifications.

Who updates pay rates after the Annual Wage Review?

You do, in your payroll system. Astalty indexes the allowances it calculates and the classification base rates it suggests, but the pay rates on your Xero pay items are maintained by you.

Can Astalty tell me if my roster complies with the Aged Care Award, or give payroll advice?

Astalty gives you the tools — the interpreter, the per-worker interpretation trace, the scheduling alerts and the playground — but it cannot give payroll advice or confirm compliance for your organisation. How the Award applies to your situation is your decision; refer to the Award or seek qualified advice.

What Astalty covers under this award

Conclusion

The Aged Care Award interpreter covers ordinary hours, shift loadings, weekend and public holiday penalties, overtime, casual loading, sleepovers, broken shifts and the meal and kilometre allowances, with an on-screen rule trace for every decision it makes. Provisions outside the engine — leading hand and other clause 15 allowances, on-call and recall, TOIL, higher duties, ADOs and leave rules — must be managed through correct rostering or manual controls.