The small business super clearing house has closed: your 1-2-3 for paying super now

What does the clearing house closure mean for you?

If you used the ATO’s free clearing house to pay your staff’s super, that door is shut. According to the ATO, the Small Business Superannuation Clearing House (SBSCH) closed permanently from 1 July 2026 as part of the Payday Super reform. It can’t be used to pay super, and it can’t be used to download your records.

Why it went is simple. The SBSCH was built for the quarterly world, where one batch of super left the account every three months. Payday Super wants contributions in the fund within days of each payday, and a service designed for the old rhythm didn’t fit.

Here’s the 1-2-3 for getting sorted:

1. Pick your new route for sending super.
2. Set the timing so super leaves with each pay run, with room for processing.
3. Plan the cash buffer, because the old quarterly float is gone.

Step 1: which replacement should you choose?

The ATO’s guidance points employers to three kinds of replacement. They differ in cost, effort and how much of the job is automatic.

Route	How it works	Typical trade-off
Payroll or accounting software with super built in	You run payroll and the super payment goes out from the same system	Usually the least effort; the software may charge a subscription or per-payment fee
A super fund’s clearing house	You register with the fund and use its employer portal, often entering or uploading data	Often free, but you may manage a separate portal for each fund
A commercial clearing house	An independent provider handles contributions to many funds	More features and volume handling, but generally charged

The old service was free, so cost is the real change. As a rule of thumb, count the number of employees, the number of different funds they use, and how often you pay. A sole-employee business with one fund might be fine with a fund portal. A business with fifteen staff spread across eight funds will usually save hours by letting software do it.

Three questions to ask before you choose

• Does it send super with the pay run, automatically? Manual uploads are where late payments are born.
• Does it handle every fund your staff use, including self-managed funds and those staff have chosen themselves?
• What does it cost over a year, including per-employee and per-payment charges?

Illustrative example only. A trade business has six staff on a fortnightly pay run, spread across five funds. The owner used to key everything into the SBSCH after payroll. Under the new system, the payroll software already holds the fund details, so switching super payments on inside payroll removes the double handling. The monthly cost is higher than free, but the owner no longer spends an evening a fortnight on it.

Whatever you pick, look for the provider on the ATO’s own information first. The ATO’s closure notice and latest update are the places to check what’s current.

Step 2: how do you time the payment now?

Under Payday Super, the ATO says super must be received by the employee’s fund within 7 business days after payday, unless a longer period applies. Its guide on how to work out and pay super also makes the point that matters most for clearing houses: a contribution counts as paid when it arrives at the fund, not when you hand it to the clearing house.

That means the seven days are not all yours. Some of them belong to the processing chain between your account, the clearing house and the fund.

A simple routine:

• On payday (or the day before): submit super with the pay run, not “later in the week”.
• Payday plus 1–2 business days: confirm the payment left your account and the provider shows it as sent.
• Payday plus 4–5 business days: check it landed, or chase the provider while you still have days in hand.

If you’re moving between providers, run the first pay run through the new route with a day or two to spare, rather than leaving it to the last moment. Mistakes in fund details and missing member information are common on a first run.

Keep your own records

Because the SBSCH can’t be used to download records any more, don’t rely on any provider to be your filing cabinet. Keep a copy of each pay run’s super summary, the fund details and the proof of payment. If you never saved your old clearing house history, your payroll software, bank statements and accountant are the next places to look, and the ATO can tell you what it holds.

Step 3: where does the cash come from?

This is the part nobody puts in the software demo. The money for super didn’t change, but when it leaves did. Our guide on Payday Super and your cash flow covers the new low point in your account in detail. Here’s how the clearing house closure adds to it:

• There may be a fee per payment, which is small but regular.
• The processing days shorten your safety margin. If the money has to be in your account when you submit, not when the fund receives it, your low point can arrive earlier in the week.
• There’s no quarterly pile of super sitting in the account to cushion a slow fortnight.

Work it out like this:

1. Take your last three months of bank statements.
2. List each payday and the super that now has to go with it.
3. Find the lowest balance in the days after payday.

If that low point scrapes zero, you’ve found the gap. You can close it by collecting from customers faster (our page on late-paying customers has a plan), holding a cash reserve, or arranging a business line of credit that you draw on only when needed. A cash flow loan suits a one-off buffer, and our payroll finance page compares the options. If you want to talk it through, send a 60-second enquiry.

What happens if super is late during the switch?

It costs far more than a fee or a facility. The ATO’s guidance on late or missed super payments says you lodge a super guarantee statement and pay the super guarantee charge. That includes:

• the unpaid super,
• interest at the general interest charge rate, compounding daily,
• an administrative uplift, which starts at 60% of the shortfall and interest but can be reduced in some circumstances.

The charge goes to the ATO, not the employee’s fund, so it doesn’t fix the employee’s balance on its own. For companies, unpaid super guarantee charge can also flow through to directors personally under the director penalty regime. If you owe the ATO already, our guide to ATO debt: three ways forward is the next stop.

The June 2026 quarter’s super was due on 28 July 2026. If you missed that one because the clearing house closed on you, don’t wait: lodge the statement and speak to the ATO.

Common mistakes in the changeover

Three slips cause most of the trouble when an employer swaps providers:

• Treating “sent” as “paid”. The submission date is not the date the fund receives the money. Always count from when it lands.
• Forgetting a new starter’s fund details. One missing member number can bounce a payment back, and the clock keeps running while you sort it out.
• Running the first pay run on the last day. Test the new route early, ideally on a smaller or quieter pay run, so a rejected payment doesn’t become a late one.

None of these needs special skills to avoid. They just need a calendar reminder a few days after each payday.

A one-page checklist for this week

• Choose your route: software, fund portal or commercial clearing house.
• Confirm it supports every fund your staff use.
• Switch on automatic super with the pay run.
• Add the super payment to your cash flow forecast for each payday.
• Save the proof-of-payment records yourself.
• Look at your BAS cash plan alongside it. Our BAS time cash flow page shows how to line up the two.
• If you’re hiring, remember each new person adds wages and super to every pay run from day one. See hiring staff and Payday Super.

The free clearing house is gone. A buffer isn’t a bad swap.

Losing a free tool is annoying, and it’s a good prompt to build the cushion you probably should have had anyway. If your forecast shows a tight patch after payday, we’d rather help you sort it before a super payment is at risk than after.

Enquiring takes about 60 seconds and your credit file isn’t touched just for asking. We don’t spray your details at a pile of lenders, so your phone won’t blow up; a real person reads your situation, then rings you. Please fill the form in accurately, with your turnover, payroll size and how quickly customers pay, so we can match the right option first time. Find out where you stand →