For years, a lot of small employers used the ATO's Small Business Superannuation Clearing House because it was free, it was government-run, and it worked. It closed on 1 July 2026, the same day super became a payday obligation rather than a quarterly one.
If you have not replaced it yet, this is the decision in front of you. It is not complicated, but the cheapest option is not automatically the right one now that timing matters.
Why timing changed the decision
Under the old quarterly rules, a clearing house that took several days to pass money to funds was harmless — you had weeks of slack. Under payday super the contribution has to be received by the fund within seven business days of payday. The lag between you paying the clearing house and the fund receiving the money is now part of your deadline, not a detail.
That single change is what should drive your choice.
The five questions to ask any provider
- How long does money take to reach the fund? Not how long until you are debited — how long until the fund has it. Ask for the typical and the worst case.
- Is it SuperStream compliant? This is non-negotiable. If a provider cannot answer this instantly, stop there.
- Does it integrate with the payroll you already run? A clearing house that requires manual re-entry every payrun is a recurring error source, and errors now surface weekly rather than quarterly.
- What does it cost, and how is it charged? Per employee, per transaction, or bundled into payroll. Weekly or fortnightly payruns multiply per-transaction pricing in a way quarterly payruns never did.
- What happens when a payment bounces? A rejected contribution — wrong fund details, closed account — is the most common failure. Ask how you are told, how fast, and what the fix looks like.
What “SuperStream compliant” actually means
It is worth knowing what you are asking for, because it is the one requirement with no flexibility in it. SuperStream is the mandatory standard for how super contributions and the data describing them move between employers, funds and the ATO. The money and the member information travel together in a defined electronic format.
That coupling is the reason it matters more now than it used to. A contribution that arrives without correctly formatted data cannot be allocated to the right member, so from the fund's side it has not really been received — and “received by the fund” is exactly what the seven-day clock measures. A payment that technically left your account but cannot be matched to an employee does not stop that clock.
Any legitimate provider will confirm SuperStream compliance without hesitation. Treat vagueness as a decline.
The option most people overlook
If you already pay for payroll software, check whether it includes a clearing house before you buy a separate one. Many do. It is worth ten minutes on the phone to your existing provider before adding another subscription and another integration to maintain.
Prove it works before you need it to
Whatever you choose, do not treat account setup as completion. Run one real contribution through it and confirm the fund received it. An account that exists and a payment path that works are different things, and the difference only shows up on a deadline.
Keep a record of when you set it up and when the first payment cleared. If anything about the transition is later questioned, a dated record of genuine effort is the useful thing to have.
If you are already late
Do not let a gap quietly extend while you shop around. Get something compliant working, document what happened, and deal with the shortfall deliberately rather than hoping it goes unnoticed. Because the consequences depend on your specific circumstances, this is the point to talk to your accountant rather than work it out from an article.
Sources
- ATO — About payday super — including the requirement that contributions be received by the fund, and the closure of the SBSCH.
- Synectic — Payday Super: the first eight weeks — published 26 August 2026, on employers still establishing clearing house access mid-transition.