External

The following information is required in order to commence a claimant on Comcare's DoF payroll system.

  • Pay Start Information Form (Refer 3.2.1).

This form notifies Comcare of where the claimant wants their pay deposited to.  It also lists any deductions they may require.

Comcare can deposit money to any bank, building society and credit union in Australia .  These codes are stored in PRACSYS and updated every month by new information from DoF.    Cheque payments are permitted but are strongly advised against due to the unreliability of the postal system.  Cash payments are not permitted.

Deductions may be made to all health funds, life insurance, union dues, government rent and housing loans etc.  Deduction codes can be obtained from the DoF Salaries Manual which will be held by the Human Resources Group, Corporate Centre. They are also listed in PRACSYS in VDTC.DM, but if not present, contact HRG to confirm the authenticity of the deduction authority.

The financial institution used by the claimant must be phoned to confirm details of BSB and account numbers in order to prevent rejections.  The form must be signed by the claimant.  If the payments are to be deposited into an account that is not in the payees name, i.e. children of deceased employees, the alternate account name must be entered.  If not, the bank will return the payment.

  • Cessation of Employment Form (Refer 12.2.10).

This form is to be completed by the agency.  This notifies Comcare of the employment details i.e. annual salary and the cessation details.

The agency is contacted by phone to confirm the date of cessation of payment.  On many occasions, the agency will write the date of retirement/resignation, not the actual date of cessation of payment.  This could result in the claimant and/or agency not receiving their full entitlements when commenced on PRACSYS or they may be paid twice.

Determinations are then issued to reimburse the agency up to the cessation date.  Determinations to pay the claimant must not be issued until the payee has been set up as a DoF payee. (SDOF.CM)

  • Employment Declaration (ED) Form (Refer 12.2.6).

The information on this form helps Comcare determine how much tax to deduct from a payees pay.  This form must be collected within 28 days (of the calendar month, not working days) of commencement on the payroll.  Prior to collection the payee should be taxed at the 'Yes' Tax Free Threshold rate and the TFN to be supplied flag should be set to Y.  If after 28 days an ED form has not been received, the Australian Taxation Office requires tax to be deducted at 48.25%.  A diary will be issued to the claims manager as a reminder.  This is an action diary and requires either the TFN to be entered or the TFN to supplied flag set to N.  A payee does not have to quote their Tax File Number, but if they don't, Comcare must deduct tax at 48.25% according to tax regulations.

All information collected on the Pay Start Information form and Employment Declaration form are then entered onto PRACSYS in Set up Dof Payee (SDOF.CM).  Apart from personnel details the commencement date must also be entered.  This date must be within the current financial year and is usually the first date of the current pay period.  This date appears as the start date on the group certificate.  Once details are entered an 'N' form ('New' Starter) is created, which goes to DoF for processing and contains a series of transactions codes with information attached to them.  Trransactions sent to DoF can be viewed in VDPT.DM.  This tells DoF to create a new payee on the payroll.   After the 'N' form has been sent to DoF, any changes required to a payee is done via a 'V' form ('variation').  All transactions will be created automatically when all this information is entered and authorised.  DoF regulations specifies that before a payee can be commenced, authorisation is necessary.

A commencement letter is sent before the pay-day to inform the claimant that payments have begun (refer 12.1.5-8).