As most business owners will be all too familiar with, the task of administering the superannuation guarantee scheme for their employees has become a laborious nightmare.

With businesses having to allow employees to select an approved superannuation fund of their choosing, the potential exists for every employee to have a different fund.

The consequential administration of issuing payments and advices to numerous fund managers has added time-consuming non productive tasks to a business’ operations.

Fortunately the Government has responded to cries for an overhaul with the introduction of SuperStream to improve the efficiency of the superannuation system.

In short SuperStream enables employers to make contributions on behalf of their employees by submitting data payments electronically in a consistent and simplified manner.

The key to this reform is using one single payment channel for all superannuation fund contributions irrespective of the number of funds employees contribute to.

SuperStream has 2 stages of implementation; for employers with 20 or more employees implementation must be by 30 June 2015 whilst employers with less than 20 employees have a further 12 months before they are obligated to it’s implementation.

The implementation phase will necessitate the collection of details of employees superannuation funds, bank account details and electronic service addresses of the funds.

Once collected though the task will be enhanced through the use of upgraded payroll software (Eg MYOB) that will generate the necessary information and trigger the electronic transfer of contributions through a single distribution process.

All in all this government reform will certainly reduce much of the superannuation administrative burden currently present for business owners and their staff.

Any such improvement in efficiency is a welcome relief for businesses across the country.