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- Nurses Award Interpretations in Astalty
Nurses Award Interpretations in Astalty
Overview
Astalty's Nurses Award interpreter processes approved shifts for workers employed under the Nurses Award (MA000034) and translates worked hours into the correct pay-rate categories and allowance lines for payroll. It works alongside the SCHADS interpreter — the award is set per worker on their employment contract, so a provider can run SCHADS support workers and Nurses Award staff side by side, 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 their own award. It does not replace the need for compliant rostering and HR practices.
Putting a worker on the Nurses Award
The award is set on the worker's employment contract:
- Open the worker's User Profile and go to the HR tab.
- Create (or edit) their contract and set Award to Nurses Award.
- Choose their Nurses Classification and pay point — the Base Hourly Rate fills in automatically from the current award rates. You can override the base rate if you pay above award.
Classifications cover Nursing Assistants, Student and regular Enrolled Nurses, Registered Nurses (levels 1–5), Occupational Health Nurses and Nurse Practitioners, each with their pay points. SCHADS-only contract fields — the SCHADS Overtime Stream, First Aid Allowance entitlement and Minimum Break Near a Sleepover — do not apply to a Nurses Award contract and are hidden. See Staff Contracted Hours for the contract workflow.
What is supported
| Area | Rule / behaviour | Supported? |
|---|---|---|
| Classification – ordinary & penalties | Weekday daytime vs afternoon shift (starts between noon and 6pm and finishes after 6pm) vs night shift (starts 6pm or later) | ✅ |
| Classify Saturday | ✅ | |
| Classify Sunday | ✅ | |
| Classify Public Holiday | ✅ | |
| Registered Nurse levels 4 and 5 exempt from shift loadings, overtime and allowances | ✅ | |
| Ordinary hours caps & overtime | Daily ordinary cap of 10 hours per shift (or a lower agreed cap) | ✅ |
| Weekly / fortnight ordinary caps (38h per week / 76h per fortnight) | ✅ | |
| Convert excess hours beyond daily/period caps into overtime | ✅ | |
| Mon–Sat overtime banding: first 2 hours at the first overtime rate, the rest at the higher rate | ✅ | |
| Sunday overtime and public holiday overtime rates | ✅ | |
| Part-time overtime only once hours exceed full-time hours (not the worker's contracted hours) | ✅ | |
| Casual employment | 25% casual loading | ✅ |
| Casual shift loadings added on top of the loaded rate; weekend, public holiday and overtime rates compounded on the loaded rate | ✅ | |
| 2-hour minimum engagement for casuals (flagged as a scheduling alert) | ✅ | |
| Allowances – implemented | Overtime meal allowance — one meal after more than 1 hour of overtime on a shift, a second after more than 4 hours (off by default, same setting as SCHADS) | ✅ |
| Laundry allowance (per-shift, capped weekly, per-worker entitlement) | ✅ | |
| Kilometre / vehicle allowance (per-km) | ✅ | |
| Allowance dollar values indexed automatically per financial year | ✅ | |
| Allowances – not implemented | Uniform allowance | ❌ |
| On-call allowance and recall to work | ❌ | |
| Telephone or other minor allowances | ❌ | |
| Breaks & rest periods | Minimum 10-hour break between shifts (flagged as a scheduling alert) | ✅ |
| 8-hour break by mutual agreement (Astalty always measures against 10 hours) | ❌ | |
| Pay consequence for an insufficient break (must be handled manually) | ❌ | |
| Work through a meal break → overtime until the break is taken | ❌ | |
| Rostering rules (alerts) | Maximum shift length of 10 hours | ✅ |
| Two full days off per week (or four per fortnight) for permanent employees | ✅ | |
| Sleepovers & broken shifts | The Nurses Award has no sleepover or broken-shift provisions — see the warning below | n/a |
| TOIL & leave | Time-off-in-lieu (TOIL) instead of cash overtime | ❌ |
| Leave entitlements, leave loading, public holiday substitution rules | ❌ | |
| Classification & higher duties | Automatic higher-duties pay when acting in a higher role | ❌ |
| Determining a worker's classification level (classification decision) | ❌ | |
| Other | On-screen rule traces explaining which award logic applied | ✅ |
Where a rule has a stricter and a looser reading, Astalty takes the reading that cannot underpay — for example, any shift starting at 6pm or later is classified as a night shift, without applying the Award's "finishing before 7:30am" carve-out.
Where you see the interpretation
The same review surfaces used for SCHADS cover Nurses Award workers — each worker's rows are interpreted under the award on their contract:
- 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. Select a worker whose contract is on the Nurses Award and the playground interprets under the Nurses rules. The sleepover and active-overnight toggles are SCHADS concepts and don't apply to Nurses Award workers.
- Timesheet exports and the Xero timesheet push — pay lines and allowances flow to payroll per worker, under each worker's award.
Each worker's expanded view includes the interpretation trace showing which Nurses Award rules were applied (daily or period caps reached, overtime bands, meal allowances and so on).
Setting up Xero pay items for Nurses Award staff
Pay items are mapped per pay group, and one pay group's mapping can only encode one award's rates. Nurses Award staff therefore need their own pay group, with pay items set up for the Nurses rates:
Whilst we cannot provide payroll advice based on your interpretation and application of the Nurses Award 2020, these are the Pay Items and their suggested multipliers when setting up Xero pay items for a Nurses Award pay group. You should refer to the Award, or seek professional and qualified advice, to ensure accuracy and compliance for your organisation.
| Pay Item | Full-time / Part-time (Multiplier) | Casual (Multiplier) | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Weekday Daytime | 1 | 1.25 | Also known as 'Standard' |
| Afternoon | 1.125 | 1.375 | Casual = loading added on top (1.125 + 0.25) |
| Night | 1.15 | 1.4 | Casual = loading added on top (1.15 + 0.25) |
| Saturday | 1.5 | 1.875 | Casual = 1.5 × 1.25 |
| Sunday | 1.75 | 2.1875 | Casual = 1.75 × 1.25 |
| Public Holiday | 2 | 2.5 | Casual = 2 × 1.25 |
| Overtime 1st Period | 1.5 | 1.875 | First 2 hours, Mon–Sat |
| Overtime Last Period | 2 | 2.5 | After the first 2 hours, Mon–Sat |
| Overtime Sunday | 2 | 2.5 | Must be mapped — differs from the ordinary Sunday rate |
| Overtime Public Holiday | 2.5 | 3.125 | Must be mapped — differs from the ordinary Public Holiday rate |
| Kilometre Allowance | Per-km | ||
| Laundry Allowance | Only for workers with the laundry entitlement | ||
| Meal Allowance | Only if automatic meal allowances are turned on | ||
| Meal Allowance (Second) | Only if automatic meal allowances are turned on | ||
| All Casual multiplier rates are inclusive of the casual loading. |
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 didn't overtime apply for my part-time nurse who worked beyond their contracted hours?
Under the Nurses Award, overtime for a part-time employee starts only once they work beyond full-time hours — more than 10 ordinary hours in a shift, or more than 38 hours in a week (76 in a fortnight) — not when they pass their own contracted hours. Hours between their contracted hours and full-time hours are paid at ordinary rates.
Why is a Registered Nurse level 4/5 not receiving penalties or overtime?
That is the Award working as intended: Registered Nurses at levels 4 and 5 are exempt from shift loadings, overtime and allowances, so their hours are paid at the ordinary rate. If a senior nurse should be receiving penalties, check their classification on the contract.
When does a meal allowance apply?
The same way as SCHADS, using the same setting: when automatic meal allowances are turned on (Settings → Scheduling → Meal Allowance), a Nurses Award worker receives one meal allowance once a shift's overtime exceeds one hour, and a second once it exceeds four hours. The second allowance has its own Meal Allowance (Second) Xero pay item. It is off by default.
Can I put an aged-care nurse on the Nurses Award?
Not yet. Astalty implements the non-aged-care rate table only, and there is no way to tell Astalty a nurse works in aged care — so an aged-care nurse would be costed at the lower rates. Keep aged-care-sector nurses off the Nurses Award in Astalty until aged-care support is added.
Who updates pay rates after the Annual Wage Review?
You do, in your payroll system — the same as for SCHADS. 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 Nurses 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.
Conclusion
The Nurses Award interpreter covers the core monetary rules around ordinary hours, overtime, shift loadings, casual loading and the meal, laundry and kilometre allowances, with the same transparency (rule traces, playground, pay report) as the SCHADS interpreter. Provisions outside the engine — on-call and recall, TOIL, higher duties, uniform allowance and leave rules — must be managed through correct rostering or manual controls.