Frequently asked questions

Yellow Canary is a growing RegTech scale-up that enables Australian employers to achieve compliance confidence across employee payments, entitlements and Long Service Leave. Supporting Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) obligations, Yellow Canary’s Always On Compliance platform automates regular reviews, comparing payments to obligations, and providing rapid actionable insights.

Australian businesses are under more pressure than ever to maintain and demonstrate workforce compliance. Non-compliance with LSL can result in unexpected costs, legal consequences and damage your business. No matter the intent, underpaying workers can lead to public scrutiny, damage to reputation, penalties, decreased employee morale and lack of trust in the employer.

Yellow Canary challenges the traditional approach to workforce compliance. Their automated solutions are designed to support companies navigating the complexities of the Australian industrial relations system, and to enable ongoing compliance due diligence.

Payroll underpayments are a result of antiquated processes and systems. The cause cannot be the cure. Traditionally, pay reviews are carried out using humans, manual calculations and spreadsheets. Yellow Canary automates this process, eliminating any chance of more human error – all at a fraction of the traditional timeline.

Another key differentiator for us is that we recommend reviewing 100% of employee payments; as opposed to sampling data. Previously, there were no tools available to automate the pay review process and employers faced significant costs to perform pay reviews. Instead, many employers choose to only review a sample of the workforce and extrapolate results.  

This approach is problematic because:

• It assumes all employees work the exact same hours which does not reflect the actual variations in working patterns;  
• Sample groups of less than 40% are too small to deliver a statistically relevant result; and  
• In the event that staff are required to be reimbursed for underpayments, individual calculations for each employee would need to be completed separately, resulting in further work and potential inaccuracies.  

Our automation first approach allows 100% of employee payments to be accurately recalculated, eliminating the need for sample-based estimates obtained through manual reviews.

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We recommend the following:

• A dedicated internal project manager and sponsor to oversee and make decisions.
• A single person authorised to provide instructions to Yellow Canary
• A dedicated Pay Rules and Data contact

After the onboarding process, maintaining the platform on an ongoing basis takes up minimal resource; usually less than one FTE.  

Yellow Canary's Always on Compliance package or solution empowers businesses to achieve this objective by utilising automation to update balances and detect and resolve payment variances monthly. This is helpful for businesses to future-proof their ongoing workforce compliance.

We understand that every employer has unique needs and requirements. To make sure we provide the best solution tailored to your specific situation, we prefer to discuss your needs in detail with you first. This allows us to offer a pricing structure that aligns perfectly with the value and support your business will receive from our solutions. Get started here.

State specific wage theft laws in Queensland and Victoria mean that employers in those states can face criminal charges and convictions as a result of wage theft.

Under the Closing Loopholes Act 2023, intentional wage theft will carry severe penalties of up to 10 years in prison and fines reaching $1,565,000 for individuals and $7,825,000 for corporations, or three times the value of the underpayment – whichever is higher.

The Closing Loopholes No.2 Act 2024 includes civil provisions. Serious contraventions will cover recklessness as well as intentional acts, with the maximum fine increasing to $4,696,000, or three times the underpaid - whichever is higher. These reforms are prompting employers to think ahead about their compliance strategies, to avoid penalties resulting from missteps in wage compliance processes.

Yellow Canary's systems are hosted in our secure cloud environment hosted by Amazon Web Services (AWS).

Long Service Leave is state based which means that depending on the state the employee works in, employers in those states can face penalties due to LSL underpayments.

For example, under the Long Service Leave Act 2018 (VIC), if an employer is found guilty, the Court may order the employer to pay the outstanding long service leave entitlement to the employee and may also mandate the payment of interest.

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We recommend conducting a historical LSL review initially to ensure that balances for any Always on Compliance are accurate and correct. This will position you and your company optimally for ongoing compliance.

We understand that every employer has unique needs and requirements. To make sure we provide the best solution tailored to your specific situation, we prefer to discuss your needs in detail with you first. This allows us to offer a pricing structure that aligns perfectly with the value and support your business will receive from our solutions. Get started here.

If superannuation guarantee payments are incorrect, employers can face several serious consequences. They may incur significant penalties and interest charges imposed by the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) for underpayment or late payment. Additionally, employers might be liable for the superannuation guarantee charge, which includes the unpaid super, penalty interest, and administrative fees.  

Persistent non-compliance can lead to legal action by the ATO, resulting in further financial and reputational damage. Moreover, failing to meet super guarantee obligations can harm an employer's reputation, affecting relationships with employees and stakeholders, and potentially impacting overall business operations and growth.

We recommend conducting a historical superannuation review (Superannuation Remediation) initially to ensure balances for any Always on Compliance are accurate and correct. This will position you and your company optimally for ongoing compliance.

Australian businesses are under more pressure than ever to maintain and demonstrate workforce compliance. Non-compliance with workplace laws can result in payroll underpayments. This isn’t just bad for business; no matter the intent, underpaying workers can lead to decreased employee morale and lack of trust in the employer. Regular compliance reviews are essential for employers to ensure they’re meeting legal and ethical obligations and that issues do not compound over time.

Yellow Canary adds an extra layer of accuracy and confidence where your payroll system rules may not be sufficient. We work with you and your legal counsel or compliance expert to confirm your agreed pay rule interpretations. We then use this interpretation as the source of truth for all pay reviews. Our automation technology eliminates any risk of human error that is common with manual review methods.

Yellow Canary’s Always On Compliance platform is technology agnostic and compatible with any payroll, timesheet and/or employee management system. We work with our clients during onboarding to develop a consistent file format so any system is easy to handle.

When our clients choose to carry out remediation, we work in 2 phases.

To empower you to quickly gain insight into your compliance status and address any ongoing issues of non-compliance, we suggest commencing AOC for one cohort as the first step.

Having Cohort 1 live on AOC first will enable you to gain insight into your compliance status faster, allowing you to address gaps early and establish a strong foundation to demonstrate compliance.

Once you have the comfort of having Cohort 1 live on AOC we will commence the Remediation phase for Cohort 1. We will then repeat this process with the remaining cohorts.

Yellow Canary hosts quarterly in-person team days to encourage team bonding and ensure our teams are aligned on our business goals and values. In addition to this, Yellow Canary regularly hosts in-office and remote team social events, giving all Canaries the opportunity to connect with one another.

Yellow Canary is a hybrid-model workplace, and we have employees located all over the East Coast of Australia. We encourage flexibility and allow our employees to choose what’s right for them and their personal situation. Our main HQ is in Sydney, and we have flexible office space available in other locations in Australia.

No, we do not require any employee Personal Identifiable Information as part of our audits.

While remediation seeks to correct past errors and concerns, it does not necessarily address current issues, nor assist with ongoing compliance. Focusing only on the past leaves businesses exposed to the risk of continuing non-compliance. This in turn does not enable businesses to do the right thing by their employees.

Yellow Canary's Always On Compliance empowers businesses to achieve this objective by utilising automation to detect and resolve payment variances on a monthly basis.

We offer remediation as an add-on to our Always On Compliance solution to cover both historical and proactive reviews.

Always On Compliance provides proactive visibility into potential underpayments or overpayments down to the individual employee. The dashboard identifies key drivers of variances to enable you to remediate where needed, improve compliance processes going forward and optimise workforce planning.

Payroll teams also find our dashboard handy for automating pay query checks from employees. Payroll managers can drill down into the individual employee via our dashboard to provide answers to payroll queries straight away, rather than having to go through multiple systems to work out the answer manually.

During the onboarding period, we will brief you on all the details you need to provide get started. We will work with you to transfer your required data via your preferred data transfer method. We then configure rules, import your data, and get you set up on our platform.

We respect your time is precious and we want you to know that business as usual will not be impacted. Our experience shows that customers appreciate, and prefer, a written fortnightly status update, supported by calls on request and when we deliver results during onboarding. However, we are open to different approaches based on client reference.

Incorporating a step for frequent reviews of superannuation charges helps to ensure that what should have been paid aligns with actual payments made. Yellow Canary’s Superannuation Compliance tool is instrumental in managing these obligations.

The technology automates the calculation of superannuation guarantee amounts and identifies any variances in payments, helping to ensure contributions are both accurate and timely. The tool calculates shortfall, interest and administration fees to identify total SGC liabilities owed to the ATO. The tool also simplifies the preparation and submission of superannuation guarantee charge statements for any late or underpaid superannuation payments, streamlining the reporting process to the ATO. By providing detailed insights at the individual employee level, the tool reduces the risk of human error and helps employers ensure that employees receive the correct amounts owed. Yellow Canary's tool improves compliance accuracy, mitigates risk, and supports informed decision-making, helping employers efficiently adhere to superannuation compliance.

Our superannuation compliance tool offers comprehensive data management including the storage and integration of employee information and historical employment data. This gives accurate insight when identifying previous underpayments and overpayments of superannuation guarantee for remediation projects.

Our Superannuation Compliance tool provides real-time monitoring and adaptability to superannuation requirements. It provides analytics of superannuation guarantees to help employers anticipate changes and adjust compliance criteria, minimising the risk of non-compliance. Leveraging machine learning and AI capabilities, you can identify patterns and correlations within your data to get actionable insights into the root causes of payment delays.

This proactive, automated approach creates a framework where compliance remains consistent and reliable across various employee scenarios, improving or maintaining overall organisational efficiency, risk management and employee morale.

The Superannuation Compliance tool can be utilised as a standalone product with Yellow Canary. Navigating Modern Award/EA compliance and long service leave compliance come with their own individual complexities and risks, which we encourage you to consider within your governance framework.

Yellow Canary was founded in 2018 by Marcus Zeltzer and Brenton McSweyn to address under-serviced and widespread workforce compliance issues in Australian businesses.

We’re committed to ensuring Yellow Canary is a happy, fair and safe place to work. Our Glassdoor rating is 4.7 and we’ve also obtained certification as a Great Place To Work, with over 93% of employees attesting to this.

Yes, data is encrypted both in transit and at rest.

Our Always On Compliance solution only requires configuration -rather than construction - which comes from a combination of assumptions, rules and interpretation principles that are applied to your data. The platform does not need to be constructed from the ground up, nor is it dependent on a substantial number of people to run it.

Yellow Canary's market-first LSL compliance tool is the only automated solution on the market that accurately calculates LSL balances and payments according to Australian state legislation and industrial instruments.  

Our product continuously updates to reflect any changes as state-based LSL legislation develops and navigates how rules apply and interact, removing the stress of errors and manual calculations. Additionally, employers can identify LSL discrepancies after each pay run, so you can quickly resolve errors and prevent the escalation of long-term and costly issues.

Providing visibility on under and overpayments, our platform empowers large employers with invaluable insights to address non-compliance, reduce operational costs and optimise payroll processes. Aside from LSL, our platform utilises automation technology to support historical reviews and ongoing compliance across various areas, including Modern Awards and Enterprise Agreements.

Our LSL compliance tool offers comprehensive data management including the storage and integration of employee information and historical employment data. This gives accurate insight when identifying previous underpayments and overpayments of LSL for remediation projects.

Our LSL compliance tool provides real-time monitoring and adaptability to LSL requirements. It provides analytics of LSL to help employers anticipate changes and adjust compliance criteria, minimising the risk of LSL non-compliance.  

This proactive, automated approach creates a framework where compliance remains consistent and reliable across various employee scenarios, improving or maintaining overall organisational efficiency, risk management and employee morale.

Yes. Yellow Canary’s flexible technology configures to any modern award, enterprise agreement or industrial instrument agreed with your legal counsel or compliance advisor.

Yellow Canary’s Always On Compliance subscription offers a purpose-built calculator configured to your business needs. Using advanced technology, Yellow Canary creates a fast and scalable solution that simplifies the payroll verification process.

All data is hosted in Australian data centres.

Yellow Canary employs secure software development to ensure security if built in from the start. We incorporate security into every phase of the software development lifecycle.

Yes, it does. Yellow Canary’s LSL compliance tool gathers essential employee information, such as the start date of employment, employment status and work patterns. It then determines the employee’s eligibility based on continuous service and calculates the total length of service by converting the years of service into weeks. By multiplying the weekly accrual rate by the total weeks of service, our tool can accurately determine the employee's LSL entitlement in weeks.

Yes, it does. Our technology is integrated with all Australian states and is designed to adapt to new state-specific LSL legislation. We continuously update our product to reflect any changes as laws develop.

Yes, Yellow Canary’s Superannuation Compliance tool supports quarterly reviews. It enables employers to conduct regular checks on superannuation guarantee payments and compliance, supporting that contributions are accurate and up to date. The tool provides real-time insights and detailed data, facilitating efficient management and prompt quarterly resolution of discrepancies. This proactive approach helps maintain ongoing compliance and supports informed decision-making.

Yellow Canary’s Superannuation Compliance tool reviews pay codes to support employers in ensuring that superannuation contributions are accurately calculated and aligned with applicable regulations. If incorrect pay codes are used, we collaborate with you to identify the correct superable/OTE (ordinary time earnings) pay codes on the platform. This ensures superannuation is paid on the appropriate pay codes, maintaining compliance and accuracy in contributions.

Yes, Yellow Canary's Superannuation Compliance tool can identify both superannuation guarantee (SG) shortfalls and nominal interest. The tool analyses payroll data against SG obligations to detect any shortfalls in contributions. Additionally, it calculates the nominal interest that may accrue due to underpayments or late payments, helping employers address these issues and get support for superannuation compliance.

Yellow Canary’s clients are some of Australia’s most recognisable employers with workforces from 500 to 100,000 across a range of industry sectors including banking, insurance, retail, hospitality, manufacturing and health services.

No problem! We have processes in place to help with changes and updates during any Always On Compliance subscription.

Data gaps have appeared in every engagement we have had. We work with employers and their legal counsel to include data assumptions to ensure a more fulsome review. We can also refer you to one of our partners to help transform your data into the correct format if needed.

At Yellow Canary, we are continually developing our people benefits, some of which include truly flexible and hybrid working, flexible office spaces for remote Canaries, and an inclusive parental leave policy to support all parents on their parenting journeys. We also support our Canaries in setting up their home office, and with growth and development opportunities.

Auth2.0 is used for secure authentication into our software.

Yes, within the dashboard, you can categorise the data into ‘Offset', for the purpose of monitoring late payment amounts by quarter vs ‘Carry Forward’, for the purpose of identifying pre-payment amounts to apply it to a future quarter. Yellow Canary’s Superannuation Compliance tool can also help you compare the two to determine which is the most cost-effective to apply for your late payment strategy.

The tool provides detailed tracking and reporting on superannuation contributions, enabling employers to monitor the timing of payments. This helps ensure that all contributions are made in a timely manner and allows for the identification of superannuation guarantee and liabilities at the right time.