Processing Paid Family and Domestic Violence Leave

How to process and report Paid Family and Domestic Violence Leave in Sybiz Visipay

This summary gives employees an overview of how to process payments and report the new Paid Family and Domestic Violence Leave (FDVL) through STP in Sybiz Visipay (this information was changed on 13 February 2023 based on new information received from the ATO).

For detailed information about administering Paid Family and Domestic Violence Leave refer to Fair Work Australia and the ATO website.

1. Discuss with your employee, if possible, their preferred option

Employees may choose for FDVL to be displayed as a specific type of leave on their payslip, providing it does not disclose that it is FDVL. 

For example, an employee may choose for this to show as Leave – Other, Annual Leave, Bereavement Leave or any other type of leave entitlement. If an employee chooses one of these options, it must not affect their existing entitlements or balances.

2. Where an employee is unable to, or does not specify their preferred option

Employers must record all FDVL on employee payslips in a way that 1) does not identify that the employee has taken FDVL, and 2) makes the payslip look as close as possible to how the employee would usually get paid.

This means that if an employee takes 1 day of FDVL, the hours for that day should be included in the normal hours of the employee’s regular pay or added as a payment made in relation to the employee’s performance, such as an allowance, bonus, or overtime payment.

3. Where 'Leave - Other' is chosen by the employee

Create a new leave type as a sub-type of Personal Leave. This leave should be called Leave - Other, Special Leave or Miscellaneous Leave. It must not be called anything that identifies it for what it is (by default, Personal Leave balances do not show on payslips and payslips should be reviewed in the event that personal leave balances are showing).

Add that leave to each staff type, it is recommended that the number of days is left as 0 as it is non accumulating leave.

Create a Leave pay item for that Leave, naming it Leave - Other, Special Leave or Miscellaneous Leave and set it up the same as any other normal leave pay item. The pay rate used is meant to encompass the employee's full pay rate.

4. Reporting for STP must match the amounts on an employee’s payslip

It was previously advised by the ATO that Family and domestic violence leave was to be reported through STP2 as 'Leave - Other', however this advice has changed (13 February 2023). To maintain employee’s confidentiality, STP2 reporting of any FDVL paid in any manner is to match exactly what is displayed on the payslip, whether this be ordinary hours, leave, or another payment type.

5. Superannuation entitlements

Employers must treat any amounts that would usually be considered ordinary hours of work as such for super guarantee purposes, and report information about your employee's super entitlements as per your normal process.

6. Options to track leave entitlement

Employers have the choice of manually tracking the leave entitlement vs. utilisation which makes sense in cases of low anticipated use or using Sybiz Visipay to track the leave entitlement vs. utilisation. In any case, after the scheme commences the entitlement resets to 10 days upon anniversary.

7. Using Sybiz Visipay to track leave entitlement

In the event that Sybiz Visipay is used to track the utilisation then it is recommended to import the leave balances for employees to set the hours available to represent 10 days, then upon the employee's anniversary, set the hours taken to 0.

Note that the leave is also available to casual employees in the event they have the need to take that leave at a time they are rostered to work. In such a case it may not be possible to express the entitlement in hours, in which case it would be better to set up a pay item as a Per Item calculation method and set the 'hours' available to 10. Each time FDVL is taken it would be a quantity of one and the amount would be the total the employee would have got paid for their rostered shift.

Other important information

It is possible for part days to be taken but as to how that is calculated is for negotiation between employer and employee. Employers may choose to pro-rate it based on the hours worked vs hours meant to have been worked.

 As with all pay arrangements the requirements described are the minimum requirements and employers are entitled to act more favourably than these minimum requirements.

For more STP2 help in Sybiz Visipay, take a look at our STP2 FAQs.