Why Australian Accountants Should Refer Nanny Payroll Clients to Pay The Nanny | Pay The Nanny [ ![Pay the nanny logo](https://assets.paythenanny.nz/images/logo-white.png) ](/) [Parents](https://paythenanny.com.au/For-Families) [Nannies](https://paythenanny.com.au/For-Nannies) [Agencies](https://paythenanny.com.au/for-agencies) [Pricing](https://paythenanny.com.au/pricing) [Contact](https://paythenanny.com.au/contact) [Sign Up](https://paythenanny.com.au/signup) [Log In](https://paythenanny.com.au/app/login) Article ------- Why Australian Accountants Should Refer Nanny Payroll Clients to Pay The Nanny ============================================================================== By Mark Hudson · 26 May, 2026 Plenty of Australian families don't realise that hiring a nanny turns them into an employer. For accountants, that's both a compliance headache for the client and a quiet referral opportunity for the firm. ![Why Australian Accountants Should Refer Nanny Payroll Clients to Pay The Nanny](https://assets.caresies.io/articles/208/conversions/XcMEaVMptXlPfpe9wh93-webp-featured.webp) Nanny payroll is creeping onto accountants' desks ------------------------------------------------- Hiring a nanny usually starts as a practical decision. A parent returns to work, before-school care doesn't stretch far enough, or the family just needs flexible help at home. The payroll side tends to be an afterthought, until a question lands in your inbox. Can we pay her as a contractor? Do we need to do super? What about leave when we go away over Christmas? These look like quick questions. They rarely are. Household employment has more moving parts than most clients expect, and the rules tightened again with Payday Super becoming mandatory from 1 July 2026. For most firms, the real question isn't whether the client needs help. It's whether running a one-nanny payroll is the best use of your time. That's why a growing number of Australian accountants refer this work to Pay The Nanny. Most families default to "contractor" and most are wrong -------------------------------------------------------- The most common misstep is paying the nanny on invoice as a contractor. The ATO is clear that the distinction between an employee and a contractor depends on the totality of the working relationship, not the label the parties stick on it. Recent High Court decisions have made that test sharper, not looser. In a typical nanny arrangement the family sets the hours, directs the work, supplies the home as the workplace, and expects the nanny to do the job personally. That looks like employment under almost any sensible reading. For accountants, this is a useful moment to step in early. The client probably doesn't need a complicated structure. They need to know they're an employer, and to get the basics right from week one. PAYG, super and STP all apply ----------------------------- Once the family is an employer, the usual obligations follow. PAYG withholding. Superannuation Guarantee at 12 per cent. Single Touch Payroll reporting each pay event. A TFN declaration on file. Pay slips that meet Fair Work standards. Payday Super lands on 1 July 2026, which means super contributions will need to be paid at the same time as wages rather than quarterly. For a household running fortnightly pays, that's a meaningful shift in cash flow rhythm and admin frequency. A business client with payroll software and a bookkeeper might absorb this without blinking. A family employing one nanny generally cannot. The volume is small but the rules are the same. Leave is where well-meaning families come unstuck ------------------------------------------------- The National Employment Standards apply to nannies the same way they apply to any other employee. Four weeks of paid annual leave for full-time and pro rata for part-time. Ten days of paid personal and carer's leave. Public holiday entitlements. Notice periods. Final pay calculations done properly when the role ends. Casual loading is another area where families guess and hope. A genuinely casual arrangement is treated very differently to a part-time one, and getting it wrong creates back-pay risk down the track. These are the questions clients tend to fire at their accountant first, partly because you're the trusted adviser and partly because they don't know who else to ask. WorkCover is the quiet one -------------------------- State-based workers compensation often gets missed entirely in household employment. Each state has its own rules and thresholds, and the consequences of not having appropriate cover in place sit with the employer, not the employee. Clean payroll records make this side of things much easier to sort out and keep current. Why referring beats absorbing the work -------------------------------------- Small household payrolls are fiddly. Time-sensitive. Full of questions that sit somewhere between payroll, HR and general employment admin. The margin is thin and the risk of being asked employment law questions outside your normal scope is real. A referral keeps the client relationship strong without dragging your team into low-value, high-touch admin. How Pay The Nanny helps ----------------------- Pay The Nanny is built specifically for Australian families employing nannies and au pairs. We handle the regular payroll process, super, STP lodgements, pay slips, leave calculations and the practical questions that come up week to week. We're not employment lawyers and we'll always point a family toward proper legal advice when the situation needs it. On the payroll and compliance side though, we do this every day for hundreds of families. When to refer ------------- Send a client our way when they're hiring a nanny or au pair, when they're unsure whether the worker should be an employee, when they want help with PAYG, super, STP or leave, or when they've asked your firm to "just sort the nanny pay." Earlier is better. Setting things up properly before the first pay is far less painful than unwinding six months of informal cash payments. If your client is hiring a nanny in Australia, send them to [Pay The Nanny](https://paythenanny.com.au/). 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