Jazaa Accountants, Owner Held Liable for 3,081.5 Underpaid Hours

Q: This firm's poor records cost them the case; what is the one document that could have saved them?

The single most important document was a complete, accurate time-and-wages record, backed by compliant payslips. In this case, the decisive problem was not just that Jazaa Accountants underpaid the worker, but that it could not prove what hours he worked or what he was properly paid. The court said the firm failed to keep lawful employee records and issue correct payslips, which triggered the Fair Work Act’s reverse onus. Once that happened, the employer had to disprove the worker’s claimed 3,081.5 hours and could not do so. The court therefore accepted the worker’s figures. If there is one document that would most likely have changed the outcome, it is a reliable timesheet or time record showing the employee’s actual daily and weekly hours from February 2023 onward. That record would have been the core evidence against the underpayment claim and against the worker’s reconstruction of hours. In Australian wage cases, hours records are often the employer’s primary defence. That said, a timesheet alone is not enough unless it matches payroll records. Proper payslips remain legally critical because they show rates of pay, gross and net amounts, deductions, and superannuation details. Together, accurate time records and compliant payslips are what prove compliance. So, if forced to name one document, it is the time record. But the broader lesson from this ruling is that employers need a full paper trail: hours, pay slips, leave records, and super records kept correctly for years.

1 articles · Updated · HRD America · Jul 16

July 13's NSW Industrial Court ruling found Jazaa Accountants and its owner jointly liable for underpaying a former worker and breaching Fair Work Act rules on pay, records, leave, payslips and super.
3,081.5 hours were accepted as the worker's total because missing records and faulty payslips triggered a reverse onus, leaving the firm unable to disprove his unpaid-hours claim.
February 2023 became the key start date after the court ruled the graduate visa holder was doing revenue-earning client work, not unpaid 'work experience,' before his formal paid employment began in June 2023.
The owner was held personally liable because the court found he controlled hours, wages, records and payslips; it dismissed the worker's separate $15,000 visa-sponsorship claim and treated a $2,000 payment as a loan.
Compensation and any penalties are still to be decided, with the parties ordered to file agreed or competing orders within seven days.