Payroll & Award Compliance

Strengthening payroll governance, reducing compliance risk and protecting organisational integrity

What We Help You Achieve

We support Boards, executives and business owners to strengthen payroll governance, improve Award and Enterprise Agreement compliance, and reduce the risk of employee underpayments, payroll errors and regulatory breaches.

Our reviews provide practical insight into payroll frameworks, systems, approvals, time recording practices and control environments – helping organisations establish compliant, efficient and well-governed payroll environments.

With payroll often representing one of the largest organisational expenses, effective payroll governance is critical to protecting financial performance, maintaining employee trust and supporting confident, well-governed decisions.

The Challenge

Payroll environments are increasingly complex, involving:

Multiple Awards and Enterprise Agreements;
Time and attendance systems;
Payroll interfaces and spreadsheets;
Shift, overtime and allowance calculations;
BOOT reconciliations;
Decentralised approvals; and
Sensitive employee data.

What we do

We support organisations through:

Payroll Governance HealthChecks and framework reviews
Payroll processing and controls assessments
Award and Enterprise Agreement compliance reviews
BOOT and annualised salary governance assessments
Payroll systems interface and data flow reviews
Payroll approval, delegation and audit trail assessments
Payroll masterfile access and change control reviews
Payroll cyber security and data governance considerations
Payroll procedure and workflow reviews
Payroll transaction testing and compliance analytics

Our Risk Management Solutions

Enterprise Risk Governance Frameworks

We design fit-for-purpose enterprise risk management frameworks tailored to your organization’s size and complexity. 

Our comprehensive frameworks cover:

Governance & Oversight: Policies, procedures, Three Lines models, and Board committee structures.
Strategy & Operations: Risk assessment methodologies, reporting protocols, and culture programs.
Future Readiness: Emerging risk scanning and attestation processes.

Our Key Differentiator: We embed controls effectiveness directly into the risk process. This moves you beyond theoretical discussions to give you practical, real-time insight into whether your controls are actually working.

Risk Appetite Statement

We facilitate the development of Board-level Risk Appetite Statements that clearly define acceptable risk, governance expectations, tolerances, and escalation requirements.

Our collaborative methodology includes:

Alignment & Calibration: Director surveys, facilitated workshops, and risk domain development.
Practical Tools: KRI development, appetite summaries, and governance escalation frameworks.

The Outcome: We ensure your risk appetite becomes a practical decision-making tool, rather than just a compliance document.

Strategic and Operational Risk Assessment

We facilitate strategic and operational risk identification workshops to identify those events that could impact the achievement of organisational objectives. 
Our assessments include:

strategic risk identification;
operational and business unit risk assessments;
emerging risk identification;
controls evaluation;
residual risk assessment;
consequence and
likelihood analysis;
treatment plan development; and
operational and strategic risk register design.

Our workshops are engaging and education-focused – helping organisations strengthen internal risk capability and risk culture.

Risk Reporting & Governance Oversight

We develop tailored reporting and governance frameworks that focus on material risks, emerging threats, and trend analysis to improve visibility, accountability, and oversight.

Our frameworks deliver:

Reporting & Governance: Board and Committee packs, risk dashboards, KRI reporting, and escalation protocols.
Enhanced Visibility: Real-time insights into control effectiveness, operational resilience, and movement against risk appetite.

The Outcome: We move your reporting beyond compliance to provide actionable data for stronger governance decision-making.

Emerging Risk and Horizon Scanning

We help organisations strengthen forward-looking risk capability by identifying emerging threats, trends and external disruptions that may impact strategic objectives.

This includes:

horizon scanning;
emerging risk workshops;
geopolitical disruption analysis;
technology, cyber and AI disruption assessments;
cyber and operational resilience reviews;
scenario planning; and
preparedness and response assessments.

Our focus is helping organisations anticipate disruption before risks materialise.

Risk Governance Health Checks

We assess the maturity and effectiveness of existing risk management frameworks and governance arrangements.

Reviews may consider:

Board and Committee oversight;
risk governance structures;
policy and framework maturity;
alignment to ISO 31000 and better practice;
risk reporting effectiveness;
controls effectiveness;
risk culture maturity;
operational embedding; and
integration with strategic planning and decision-making.

We then develop practical improvement roadmaps to strengthen capability over time.

How We Deliver:

Our reviews and advisory are personally delivered by experienced senior practitioners who bring commercial judgement, governance expertise, operational controls insight and practical commercial judgement.

We combine:

Payroll process walkthroughs;
Systems and workflow assessments;
Payroll transaction testing;
Governance and delegation reviews; and
Compliance testing and controls analysis

to identify both compliance risks and broader governance improvement opportunities.

Our approach is collaborative, practical and improvement focused – helping organisations strengthen payroll capability, reduce risk exposure and improve operational confidence.

Outcome:

Clients benefit from:

Reduced payroll underpayment and compliance risk;
Dtronger payroll governance and accountability;
Improved oversight of payroll approvals and delegations;
Enhanced confidence in Award and Enterprise Agreement compliance;
Improved payroll systems governance and audit trails;
Reduced exposure to payroll fraud, error and inappropriate transactions;
Improved payroll efficiency and process consistency; and
Greater confidence at Board and executive level.

Our Risk Solutions are strategy focused and designed to:

Specific Risk services include:

Risk Management Framework HealthChecks/Maturity Benchmarking - A benchmarking against better practice, peers and regulatory standards
Board Risk Appetite Statement Development - Simple, proven process for Boards to determine their risk tolerances across the key areas of their business
Risk Assessment Workshop Facilitation - Formal workshop facilitation – risk identification, controls effectiveness assessment, risk rating (Likelihood & Consequence) and risk mitigation strategies
Risk Management Framework Policy and Procedures - Development of risk policy/procedures, risk systems and risk reporting

Selected Experience

We have supported ASX-listed entities, government, financial services, sporting organisations and not-for-profit organisations to strengthen governance, operationalise risk management and improve preparedness, oversight and decision-making. Engagements have included:

Kilcoy Global Foods (multi-national food manufacturer)

Conducted a comprehensive Payroll Governance HealthCheck across multiple Australian processing sites covering approximately 2,700 employees and annual payroll costs exceeding $180 million
Reviewed payroll governance from employee onboarding, time recording and Kronos attendance management through to Chris21 payroll processing, pay approvals and BOOT reconciliation processes
Assessed Enterprise Agreement and Award compliance, including overtime, allowances, shift penalties and payroll calculations
Evaluated payroll systems integration risks, payroll approval delegations, payroll audit trails and masterfile access controls
Provided recommendations to strengthen payroll governance, payroll procedures, approval frameworks, cyber/data controls and payroll assurance processes

Ridley Corporation Ltd (ASX Listed agricultural company)

Assessed payroll payment compliance against Award pay rates, overtime, shift penalties, allowances, superannuation and BOOT methodologies
Conducted analytics over overtime payments, rostering and time recording controls
Reviewed payroll governance processes and control frameworks supporting payroll integrity, governance and compliance

WestWaters Hotel & Entertainment Complex

Reviewed payroll transactions to confirm compliance with Award rates and overtime requirements
Assessed controls over annual leave, sick leave, Time In Lieu and payroll approval processes

Fairway Hostel

Completed a payroll financial controls environmental scan covering culture, payroll policies and procedures, employee time recording, online rostering, time recording and payroll systems, ADP payroll processing and controls over the employee masterfile

Australian & New Zealand College of Anaesthetists

Conducted a Finance Stabilisation Improvement Blueprint review covering payroll processing, financial controls, reporting and operational governance
Identified opportunities to strengthen payroll governance, systems oversight and process efficiency

Are you confident your payroll governance, systems and controls are effectively protecting against underpayments, compliance breaches, payroll fraud and reputational risk? Speak to us about how we can help you strengthen payroll governance, improve compliance and build confidence in your payroll control environment.