Wage theft is a crime now. A plain-English record-keeping checklist for venues

Since 1 January 2025, intentionally underpaying an employee's wages or entitlements can be a criminal offence under the Fair Work Act. The headlines at the time made it sound like every cafe owner with a spreadsheet error was headed for court. That isn't what the law says, and it's worth understanding the difference.

What changed

The Fair Work Ombudsman's summary is the place to read it properly, but here it is in brief. An employer commits an offence if they are required to pay an amount to an employee, such as wages, penalty rates or super, and they intentionally do something that results in it not being paid in full when it's due.

The maximum penalties are heavy: up to 10 years in prison, and very large fines for companies. That's the part that made the news.

What didn't change

If you get it wrong by accident, you have not committed the criminal offence. You paid the wrong classification level because you misread the award, or a public holiday loading didn't get applied. These are mistakes. You still have to fix them and back-pay the staff, and the Ombudsman can still pursue civil penalties, as it always could.

The trouble is that "it was an honest mistake" is much easier to say than to show. What shows it is your paperwork: evidence that you tried to work out the right rate, recorded the hours properly, and corrected problems when you found them.

The small business code

If you have fewer than 15 employees, there is a Voluntary Small Business Wage Compliance Code. If the Ombudsman is satisfied you complied with it, it will not refer you for criminal prosecution over an underpayment. The Code isn't a tick-box checklist. It looks at things like whether you made reasonable efforts to find the right pay rates, whether you sought advice from a reliable source, and whether you fixed issues promptly once you knew.

In practice: look up the award, keep a note of where your rates came from, and act when something looks off.

The record-keeping checklist

These obligations are older than the new offence. Every employer has to make and keep employee records for seven years. They have to be in English, legible, and not altered except to correct a genuine error. The Fair Work Ombudsman's record-keeping page has the full list. For a hospitality venue it comes down to this.

For each employee

• Full name, start date, and whether they are full-time, part-time or casual
• The award and classification level they are employed under, and their pay rate
• A signed contract or letter of offer
• Tax file number declaration and super fund details
• Any individual flexibility arrangement or written agreement, such as a part-timer's agreed hours

For every pay period

• Hours actually worked, including start and finish times where penalty rates or overtime apply. In a restaurant, that's most of them
• Gross and net pay, and every deduction with what it was for
• Loadings, penalty rates, allowances and overtime shown separately
• Super contributions: the amount, the period and the fund
• A pay slip issued within one working day of pay day

Over time

• Leave taken and leave balances
• Changes to pay rate or classification, with dates
• If someone leaves: how the employment ended, the notice given, and the final pay

Where hospitality venues usually slip

We'd put money on at least one of these being true somewhere in your business. Not because you're careless. It's just how venues run.

• Timesheets written from memory. If start and finish times are filled in at the end of the week, they're estimates. An estimate is a weak record to defend. This is the strongest argument for recording hours as they happen.
• Cash advances with no paper trail. A staff member asks for $200 before payday and it comes out of the till. If the deduction then appears on a payslip with no record behind it, that's a problem. Record the advance when it's given.
• The birthday nobody noticed. Junior rates step up with age. A 17-year-old who turned 18 in August and is still on the old rate in November is an underpayment.
• "Trial shifts" that were really shifts. If someone worked a full Friday service, they worked. Pay them and record it.
• Records in five places. Contracts in a filing cabinet, rosters on the wall, timesheets on a clipboard, advances in a notebook, payslips in the accountant's system. Each one is fine. Pulling them together for one employee, for one week, two years ago, is not.

Try it: pick one staff member and one week from last year. How long does it take to show what they worked and what they were paid?

A sensible way to stay on top of it

1. Once a year, and every 1 July, re-check your rates. Award rates usually move at the start of July. Write down the date you checked and the source.
2. Record time when it happens. Not on Sunday night.
3. Have a manager approve hours before each pay run. That's two sets of eyes on every shift.
4. Keep everything about a person in one profile. Contract, documents, pay history, leave, advances.
5. When you find an error, fix it and note what you did. A dated correction is evidence of good faith.

How Shiftzen fits

We built Shiftzen so that the records above are a by-product of running the venue rather than a separate chore. Staff clock on and off at the SignBook kiosk, so times are captured to the minute with a photo. Each employee has one profile holding their contract, documents, leave and salary history. Pay runs are generated from manager-approved hours, with loans, advances and expenses recorded against them, and payslips and exports go to your accountant.

What it doesn't do is tell you which award applies or what the correct rate is. That is still your call, with your accountant or the Fair Work Ombudsman's pay tools. Software keeps good records. It can't make the underlying decision for you.

This article is general information, not legal advice. For your specific obligations, contact the Fair Work Ombudsman or a qualified adviser.