Important upcoming changes to packaged Award pay & leave categories

To prevent setup errors and ensure reliable payroll processing for Australian businesses using packaged Awards, we are introducing enhanced protection rules for Award-linked pay and leave categories.

Currently, when users or API integrations delete or rename categories associated with a packaged Award, subsequent Award updates can fail, pay runs can encounter errors, and leave categories can be duplicated with broken balance mappings.

What is changing?

To solve this, we are restricting the deletion of Award-linked pay and leave categories, as well as the renaming of Award-linked leave categories, across both the user interface and API endpoints, as follows:

Pay Category Deletion: The delete option for any pay category tied to a packaged Award will be disabled. API requests targeting an Award-linked pay category will be rejected with an explanatory error message.

Leave Category Deletion: The delete option for any leave category tied to a packaged Award will be disabled. API requests targeting an Award-linked leave category will be rejected with an explanatory error message.

Leave Category Renaming: The name field for any leave category tied to a packaged Award will be disabled to prevent accidental renaming. API update requests renaming an Award-linked leave category will be rejected with an explanatory error message.