Why have I received a refund?

Sometimes, a super fund may need to refund a contribution because an employee is no longer a member of the fund or other data is invalid.

The super fund will usually refund the contribution to the employer’s nominated bank account and send a Contribution Transaction Error Response (CTER) message to the Clearing House.

The Clearing House’s Employer Portal will then send an automated notification to the employer’s nominated email address advising them that they have received a refund.

The notification usually provides the total amount of refunds that the employer received during the previous 24-hour period, but does not provide a breakdown of the total amount.

Note: the notification does not state which employee(s) the refunds were for.

Each notification is only for refunds that have occurred in the previous 24 hours and only one notification is sent a day.

Example

An employer submitted super contributions on Monday to super funds A, B and C. Super fund A may send refunds on Tuesday and super fund B may send refunds on Wednesday. The employer will receive a notification about the refunds from super fund A sent on Tuesday and then a separate notification about the refunds from super fund B sent on Wednesday.

In this example, the notification about the refunds on Wednesday will not include the amount of refunds from Tuesday, even though the refunds are related to the same contribution file.

Options for viewing refund information

When an employer receives a notification, they can either click the View button on the notification or log into the EmployerPay Portal. Depending on the error and the information received, and the number of employees (and if applicable employers) that an organisation takes care of, there are three (3) main areas in the EmployerPay Portal where more information can be obtained about a refund.

• Submission History screen – use this screen if your contribution file contains data for only a few employers or employees. 
• Contributions Reports screen – use this screen if your contribution file contains one or more errors and you have numerous employees and/or employers. or if you have a payment reference number. After generating this report, you can download it and further investigate the data in Excel.
• Payment Reports screen – use this screen if you have received an email advising that a contribution file has received one or more refunds, and the only information available is the payment reference number.