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Payroll

Migration guide

Migrating Construction Payroll: What to Capture Before You Switch

Most payroll migrations go wrong before the first pay run, in the data that never got captured. Three things decide whether the switch is clean: how you handle year-to-date reporting, whether leave balances reconcile in dollars as well as hours, and whether you kept a long service leave snapshot before the old system was turned off.
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The three decisions

What actually breaks in a payroll migration

Not the pay run. The pay run is the easy part. What breaks is the reporting trail behind it, and the liabilities that outlive the system you are leaving.

A dollar of opening variance on day one is still a dollar of variance in five years, and by then nobody can explain it.

Fresh start vs BMS ID carryoverWhy a fresh start avoids duplicated ATO income statements and pay category mismatches.Migrating leave balancesReconcile dollars, not just hours, at the cutover date.Long service leave snapshotThe point-in-time record you must keep before decommissioning payroll.Go-live checklistATO supplier settings, software ID, STP update event, super clearing house.

Sequence

The order we work in

  • Capture before you configure

    Balances, histories and year-to-date figures come out of the outgoing system first, while it is still live and still reportable.

  • Reconcile in dollars

    Hours match easily. Dollars are where the truth is, because the rate the balance was accrued at matters as much as the quantity.

  • Snapshot the forever liabilities

    Long service leave outlives your record retention obligations and your old payroll licence.

  • Then go live once

    ATO, super and STP setup done in one pass, with a parallel run against your last real pay run.

If you are on an EBA, the clause build runs alongside the migration. See how we build your EBA and the RDO accrual rules that most opening balances get wrong.

Migration questions

When is the best time to change payroll systems?

The start of a financial year is cleanest, because the outgoing system finalises a complete year of ATO reporting and the new system opens with nothing to duplicate. Mid-year is still workable, it just makes the fresh start versus carryover decision matter more.

What do we have to capture before the old system is switched off?

Leave balances in hours and dollars at the cutover date, a full long service leave history including start dates and unpaid leave periods, final year-to-date figures per employee, super payment history, and the last reconciled pay run to test against. Once the old system is decommissioned that data is gone.

Do employees see anything different in myGov?

With a fresh start they see two income statement lines for the year, the same as anyone who changed jobs mid-year. Both are finalised, both are correct, and their tax return combines them.

Who does the migration work?

We do. You send the data exports and the agreements, we build, reconcile and run a parallel pay run against your last real one before anything goes live.

Reviewed August 2026. General information, not legal or tax advice.

Next step

Planning a switch this quarter?

Send us your current setup and cutover date. We'll tell you what to capture before the old system is switched off.

Get startedBook a walkthroughSee the go-live checklist

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