I have caught more small payroll errors in the last few years than I would like to admit, and almost none of them were deliberate. They were the boring kind — a birthday missed in the system, a Sunday shift paid at the wrong rate, a junior who turned 18 three weeks ago still on the old percentage. Here are the ones I see most often.
Quick answer: The most common cafe and restaurant payroll mistakes are missing junior birthday pay-rate changes, misclassifying casual vs part-time, underpaying Sunday and public holiday penalties, and applying the wrong Award entirely.
1. Missing the Birthday Pay Rise
Junior pay rates change with age, sometimes significantly. A 17-year-old on the Restaurant Award moves from roughly 55% to 60% of the adult rate the moment they turn 18, and again at 19, 20, and 21. If your payroll system does not flag this automatically, it is very easy to keep paying last year’s rate for weeks or months after someone’s birthday.
Fix: Set a recurring reminder tied to each junior staff member’s birthday, or use payroll software that recalculates junior rates automatically based on date of birth.
2. Confusing Casual With Part-Time
This sounds basic, but it trips up more businesses than you would expect. A casual employee is paid a loading (25% under most hospitality-adjacent Awards) instead of receiving paid leave, while a part-time employee has guaranteed hours in writing and accrues leave. The mistake usually goes one of two ways:
- Treating someone as casual for years while actually rostering them on a fixed, predictable pattern (which creates casual conversion risk)
- Paying someone the casual loading while also treating them as accruing leave, effectively double-dipping in the employee’s favour but creating a paperwork mess
Fix: If someone has worked a regular pattern for 6-12 months, review whether they should be offered part-time or full-time employment instead.
3. Underpaying Weekend and Public Holiday Rates
This is probably the single most common underpayment issue in hospitality. Sunday and public holiday penalty rates are significantly higher than most people assume, and it is easy to under-apply them if you are calculating pay manually or from memory rather than checking the current Award rate.
A common version of this mistake: applying the same “weekend rate” to both Saturday and Sunday, when the Award typically sets a higher penalty for Sunday than Saturday.
Fix: Use a calculator or payroll tool that applies the correct penalty for each specific day, rather than a single “weekend” rate.
4. Applying the Wrong Award Entirely
Cafes are commonly covered by the Restaurant Industry Award, not the Hospitality Award — but the two have different classification structures and slightly different rates and rules. I have seen new cafe owners copy pay rates from a friend’s pub without realising the pub is on a completely different Award.
Fix: Confirm which Award actually applies to your business type before setting up payroll, and re-check if your business model changes (for example, if a cafe adds a full bar service).
5. Forgetting Superannuation on Every Payment
According to the ATO, superannuation is owed on ordinary time earnings for eligible employees regardless of age, including junior and casual staff, provided they meet the minimum earnings threshold. It is easy to remember for full-timers and forget for casuals working irregular hours, particularly during busy periods when a lot of new casual staff come on board quickly.
Fix: Make sure whatever payroll system you use automatically calculates super on every payment, not just for staff you think of as “regular.”
6. Not Updating Rates Every 1 July
Award minimum rates increase most years from the first full pay period on or after 1 July, following the Fair Work Commission’s Annual Wage Review. Businesses that set a pay rate once and never revisit it are almost certainly underpaying within a year or two.
Fix: Block out time in late June or early July every year specifically to check the new pay guide and update your payroll rates before the first pay run of the new period.
Getting termination notice periods wrong is another common (and costly) mistake, check our Notice Period Calculator to confirm the NES minimum before ending an employment relationship.
Just about to hire your very first employee? Start with the checklist of paperwork and payroll setup you need before their first payment.
Final Thoughts
None of these mistakes are exotic — they are the boring, repetitive kind that happen when a small business owner is juggling ten things at once and payroll is not the one getting full attention that week. The businesses that avoid them consistently are usually the ones that have built a simple recurring check (birthdays, 1 July rate updates, Award confirmation) into their calendar, rather than relying on memory.
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*This article reflects the author’s experience running payroll across multiple hospitality venues and is for general informational purposes only. It does not constitute legal, financial, or payroll advice — for guidance specific to your business, consult the Fair Work Ombudsman or a registered payroll professional.*