Migration
Construction payroll migration: long service leave records.
15 minutes, your EBA, no sales script.
The mismatch
A forever liability held in a system you are cancelling
Record retention thinking is built around seven years. Long service leave is not. The entitlement runs with continuous service, so the accrual history has to outlive the payroll licence, the vendor, and probably the payroll officer who ran the migration.
Terminating someone in five years needs history the old system will no longer hold. Capture it now, while it still exists.
The snapshot
What to capture, per employee
Balance in hours and dollars
Both, at the cutover date. Hours prove the quantity, dollars prove the liability that was carried on the balance sheet.Continuous service start date
The date the entitlement runs from, which is not always the date the employee record was created.Full accrual and taken history
Every accrual and every day taken, not a net figure. A net figure cannot be audited.Periods of unpaid leave
Unpaid leave usually breaks or pauses accrual, which moves the entitlement date. Without the dates, the adjustment cannot be reproduced.
Your payroll team exports and retains the dated snapshot alongside the leave balance reconciliation .
Portable schemes
CoINVEST, QLeave and MyLeave: the double-dipping trap
Construction workers in several states are covered by portable long service leave schemes, where the employer pays contributions to a fund instead of carrying the entitlement. CoINVEST covers Victoria, QLeave covers Queensland and MyLeave covers Western Australia. If payroll keeps accruing standard long service leave for those workers as well, the same liability is counted twice.
Portable fund plus standard accrual
- Contributions
- Paid to the scheme each period
- On-book accrual
- Still accruing on the books
- Result
- Provision overstated, and a final pay that tries to pay twice
Standard accrual only, no contributions
- Contributions
- Missed
- On-book accrual
- Accruing
- Result
- Scheme arrears, plus interest and reporting obligations
Employment Hero setup review
- Contributions
- Payments and reporting handled by your payroll team per scheme and state
- On-book accrual
- Leave settings reviewed against state rules and scheme coverage
- Result
- One liability, in the right place, reconcilable to the fund statement
| Approach | Contributions | On-book accrual | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| Portable fund plus standard accrual | Paid to the scheme each period | Still accruing on the books | Provision overstated, and a final pay that tries to pay twice |
| Standard accrual only, no contributions | Missed | Accruing | Scheme arrears, plus interest and reporting obligations |
| Employment Hero setup review | Payments and reporting handled by your payroll team per scheme and state | Leave settings reviewed against state rules and scheme coverage | One liability, in the right place, reconcilable to the fund statement |
Leave templates do the work
Review worker coverage and the interaction between statutory and portable entitlements before changing Employment Hero leave templates.Watch the provision
An overstated portable long service leave provision distorts job costing and the balance sheet at the same time. See the journal page .
Long service leave questions
How long do long service leave records need to last?
As long as the entitlement does. Invoices and general records are commonly kept for seven years, but long service leave can be paid out after fifteen or twenty years of service, so the accrual history has to survive well past any standard retention period, and past the payroll system that created it.
What goes in the snapshot?
Every employee's long service leave balance in hours and in dollars, their continuous service start date, the full accrual and taken history, and every period of unpaid leave that alters accrual. Exported, dated, and stored where finance can find it without a payroll licence.
Why does unpaid leave matter?
Because unpaid leave usually does not count towards continuous service for long service leave purposes, so it shifts the entitlement date. If that history is lost, the start date in the new system is wrong and nobody can prove why.
What is the portable long service leave double-dipping trap?
If you pay into a portable scheme such as CoINVEST in Victoria, QLeave in Queensland or MyLeave in Western Australia, and the payroll also accrues standard long service leave on the books for those same workers, the liability is counted twice. Review the applicable state scheme and entitlement rules before choosing the Employment Hero leave settings. Do not switch off an entitlement solely because a portable contribution exists.
What if we terminate someone in five years and the old system is gone?
You need the history the snapshot preserves: start date, accrual, taken, unpaid leave periods and the balance at cutover. Without it, a final pay calculation is a guess, and a guess against a statutory entitlement is the wrong side of an audit.
Reviewed August 2026. General information, not legal advice.
Next step
Switching off an old payroll system soon?
Contact us to scope the Employment Hero construction setup review before access ends. Your payroll team exports and retains the service history and migration records.
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