Payday Super is coming. I taught Claude to keep up.
The ATO is rolling out Payday Super. So what? When you run payroll, you now have to pay super at the same time — not once a quarter like before.
Miss it and you're exposing the company to penalties.
That's a problem for me, because I'm generally a bit late on payroll.
I recently took our bookkeeping back in-house to reduce costs and step into our goal of building a $2 million, in two years with two people.
It's been going ok. But "a bit late" was fine under the old quarterly super rules. Under Payday Super, late stops being a shrug and starts being a fine.
So I used Claude to see how far I could push the Xero API to keep me on top of both payroll and super.
This is the result. A small tool that:
checks Xero each day and posts any pay run that's due
lines up the super that goes with it
nudges me on the parts that have to stay manual — filing STP, and authorising the actual super payment (it sets the batch up; I approve it).
It caught me up on weeks of overdue pays in one sitting, then kept itself current. I tried to get it to control chrome to file payroll and authorise super but it was ethically against it — anything that touches money is relegated to a human.
But the day-to-day "did I run payroll, did I pay super" question now answers itself.
It was a pretty technical even with claude to work out the setup. I just kept asking until it worked.
What you'll need to try it
A paid Claude plan with Cowork — that's where it runs, no coding required.
A Xero subscription with Payroll (Australia only — it's built on Xero's AU API).
A Xero "custom connection" — about $10/month — which gives you the two keys it uses.
Auto Super switched on in Xero, so the super payment step has something to submit.
If you're on Xero in Australia and Payday Super is making you nervous, I packaged the whole thing up so you can run it on your own books.
Try it for yourself
Add a skill in claude and upload it