Access Definitiv version 3.28 includes new features and enhancements to payroll compliance, security, platform capabilities, and award engine accuracy, as well as various improvements throughout the product. We've also resolved numerous customer-reported issues to improve your experience.

Key Deadlines

In preparation for the Payday Super changes taking effect 1 July 2026, Definitiv has introduced the Qualifying Earnings (QE) calculation and reporting to meet the ATO's new reporting requirement.

From 1 July, Definitiv will automatically calculate QE for each employee during pay run processing and include both your super liability (Code L) and Qualifying Earnings (Code Q) in every STP lodgement automatically. QE amounts are visible in a new Qualifying Earnings column in the Pay Run Summary, with a QE Breakdown tab in Pay Run Employee Details showing exactly which pay items contributed to each employee's total. Employees will also be able to view their QE history and SG basis in the self-service portal, and new optional QE columns are available in the STP YTDs and STP Pay Runs reports.

To calculate the QE pay items now include an Include in Qualifying Earnings setting in Pay Item configuration. To assist with the new requirements, any pay items marked as Superable or regarded as OTE by the ATO have been automatically updated as QE. However, we recommend reviewing your pay item configuration if your organisation has non-standard super arrangements (such as salary sacrifice or overtime-linked annual leave loading) to ensure alignment with ATO guidance before 1 July 2026.

For full setup guidance, see Qualifying Earnings Setup and User Guide.

New Backpay tab on pay run details: When a bulk pay run calculation generates backpay for one or more employees, a new "Backpay" tab now appears on the pay run details screen. The tab displays a warning badge with the count of affected employees and lists them in a sortable grid for quick review.

PDF encryption for payslips and statements:

Payslips, annual statements (STP v1 and v2), and financial year payment summaries (PAYG and ETP) can now be automatically password-protected when sent as email attachments. A new Document Encryption tab in Application Settings allows administrators to enable encryption and select a method, applying a single policy across all outbound documents. Encrypted emails include clear instructions on how to open the attachment, and if an employee's date of birth is not recorded, the system automatically falls back to sending a portal link instead.

Dedicated Payslip Email Address:

Payroll administrators can now configure a dedicated payslip email address and override the default delivery method for individual employees via a new Payslip Information section on the Employee Details screen. New security permissions control who can view and edit these settings.

More information on this feature and how to configure it can be found in this Help Centre Article.

Resolved the issue where grouped shift components occurring on both a Non Public Holiday and Public Holiday were detecting twice on Day Type checks, potentially causing an overpayment.

Removed the Apply Max function on Add Pay Item per Tag as there was no underlying calculation built.

The Add Leave Request button has now been added to the scheduled timesheet to allow users to add a Leave request directly from a scheduled entry in Timesheets.

Organisations can now configure their employee number format to support alpha-numeric identifiers, in addition to the existing numeric-only format. A new organisation-level setting controls the allowed format and minimum length, with updated validation across the UI, Integration API, and Employee Workbook Import. Auto-generated employee numbers respect the configured minimum length with zero-padding. Sorting and display of employee lists have been updated to handle alpha-numeric natural sort order.

More information on this feature and how to configure it can be found in this Help Centre Article [TBC].

Improved API documentation for address fields: Swagger API documentation now includes clear guidance on expected formats for address fields, particularly that country codes must use ISO-3166 Alpha-2 format (e.g., "AU" not "AUS")

Feature Sentiment & In-app feedback prompts: New feature sentiment surveys have been added to key workflows; payroll processing, superannuation batch submission, and work schedule management, allowing users to provide feedback directly after completing these tasks.

Timesheet approvals page optimised:

The Pending Timesheet Approvals page previously froze or appeared empty for administrator users with a large number of pending requests. This has been resolved with pagination; therefore the page now loads and displays timesheet approval requests correctly in 200 increments.

Timesheet approval qualification checks optimised: Qualification checks during timesheet approvals have been improved for faster approval page load times.

Notable issues resolved in this release:

Fixed a cosmetic issue on the default payslip PDF where a leading space appeared before the employee name when no Title (Mr, Mrs, Ms, etc.) was set on the employee record. The name field now renders cleanly without leading whitespace.

End of Day:
Fixed an issue where afternoon shift employees clocking off close to midnight (e.g. 11:57 PM) had their entire timesheet incorrectly moved to the following day when the system's time rounding feature rounded the clock-off time up to midnight.

Start of Day:
Fixed an issue where timesheets with start times close to midnight were not correctly rounded to midnight the following day, causing incorrect timesheet date handling.

As the timesheets are created there is no impact on retrospective timesheets.

Fixed an issue where the system allowed duplicate breaks to be added to a timesheet via the web, resulting in incorrect break hour deductions and pay run impacts. A validation error will now prevent duplicate breaks from being saved.

Resolved an issue where the "Add Leave Request" button was always hidden when opening a scheduled timesheet entry in the Team Timesheet view, even for managers with leave submission permissions. Managers can now submit leave on behalf of employees directly from the Team Timesheet modal.

Fixed an issue where submitting an overlapping timesheet displayed a generic "Error has Occurred" message instead of the specific "This timesheet overlaps with an existing timesheet" notification.

Fixed a display issue where timesheet comment tooltips were rendering behind page elements when more than four timesheets were displayed and the "show more" option was used.

Resolved two related issues: the timesheet export was saving employee numbers as numeric Excel cells, stripping leading zeros; and the import path was normalising employee numbers to a hard-coded 6-digit format that failed for 7+ digit numbers. Both issues have been corrected to preserve the original employee number format on export and import.

Fixed a calculation error on the Organisation Work Schedule listing and Employee Work Schedule pages where duration-based entries were showing incorrect Total Hours (Excl. Breaks) and Total Hours (Incl. Breaks) values. Breaks were not being correctly deducted from duration entries and were being double-counted in the inclusive total.

Resolved an issue where employees who had permission to submit leave but not to view their own leave balances were unable to submit leave applications. The Submit button was left permanently disabled because the balance panel failed to load. The Submit button no longer requires the leave balance panel to load successfully.

Fixed an issue where duplicate employee records in roster data caused the Roster Details page to fail to load, locking roster entries and preventing switching between Employee and Role views.

Resolved an error where the Audit Summary PDF report would fail to generate for organisations with employee qualification records containing a maximum expiry date value, causing an arithmetic overflow during date range processing.

Fixed an issue where deleting a Tax File Number Declaration caused the audit record to incorrectly attribute the action to a system user rather than the actual person who performed the deletion.

When viewing the STP File on screen, the ETP Payments showed incorrectly as the previous day to an incorrect conversion of UTC.

User management redirect to Evo: For organisations enabled on the Evo platform, user email and display name changes are now blocked in Definitiv (both via UI and workbook import), with clear guidance directing administrators to manage members through the Evo Membership tab instead.