So, you’ve hired someone. Now what?

Then you hired someone.

Suddenly, there were employment contracts to write, leave requests to answer and questions about what someone was entitled to. A few months later, an employee wanted to change their regular hours. Someone else kept arriving late. Before long, you were Googling employment law at 9:47pm when you should have been doom scrolling.

For a bigger company, there might be an HR team down the hall to deal with all of that. In a small business, it usually lands back with the owner.

Google is a questionable HR department

When something comes up with an employee, Google is often the first stop. The problem is rarely finding information. There is plenty of it.

The harder part is working out which information actually applies to your business and what you should do next. A performance problem is different from serious misconduct. Changing someone’s regular hours can involve more than editing next week’s roster. A contract you found online might not cover what you need it to cover.

That uncertainty is exactly what Fitz HR is there for. Fitz HR gives small businesses answers grounded in the award that covers their team, along with employment documents, workplace policies and help with the HR questions that come up when you employ people. When a situation needs more than a template or a quick answer, there are HR professionals you can speak to as well.

And when it’s time to actually pay people, that’s where PaySauce comes in. Once you know which award applies and where each person is classified, PaySauce handles award interpretation within payroll, including applicable rates, penalties and allowances. Timesheets and leave feed into the pay run, with PAYG, super, STP reporting and payslips handled as part of payday too. So you’re not sitting there with an award open in one tab, a calculator in another and three different spreadsheets trying to piece it all together.

Between Fitz HR and PaySauce, Google can go back to answering the really important questions, like whether the chicken in your fridge is still okay to eat.

The decisions you make about people don’t stay in HR

Say someone who started behind the counter is now opening the store, training new staff and taking on more responsibility. Their role has changed, so their employment details may need to change with it.

Or an employee who has worked the same regular hours for months asks to cut back their weekends. You agree on a new arrangement and document the change.

These are HR decisions, but they can affect payroll too. A change in role, classification or regular hours can change what happens when payday comes around.

Fitz HR can help you work out whether the new role changes their classification under the award, and make sure the change is properly documented. Then PaySauce can take care of the payroll side, so the information used to pay your team reflects what has actually been agreed.

It’s a good example of why HR and payroll work better when they’re on the same page.

Then everyone needs to get paid

By payday, plenty has already happened. People have worked different shifts, taken leave, stayed late or picked up an extra Sunday. A new employee might be getting their first pay while someone else has changed roles since the last one.

PaySauce handles that part for small Australian businesses. Employee details, timesheets and leave sit alongside the pay run, with award interpretation helping calculate the applicable rates, penalties and allowances. PAYG, payslips and super are handled through the same payday process.

You can run it from your phone too, which matters when your office happens to be the back corner of a café or wherever you managed to put your laptop that day.

Your HR department and payroll department don’t need to be you

Running a team will always come with questions. Some are about people, agreements and what you should do next. Others are about hours worked and getting everyone paid correctly.

Fitz HR gives small businesses somewhere to take the HR side of those questions. PaySauce handles payday once it is time to pay the team.

If you already use Fitz HR and want to take payroll off your plate too, learn more about PaySauce and see how it works for small Australian businesses.

Related reading: how to write an employment contract, probation periods, and what HR compliance software actually has to do.