Craftworks made Sunday penalty rates a non-event across 6 venues
Six busy Sydney pubs replaced weekly bookkeeping nightmares with automated Hospitality Industry Award interpretation — reaching 100% audit compliance and a one-click payroll sync.
Marcus Thornton
Managing Director, Craftworks Hospitality Group
Results at a glance
100%
Audit compliance
Hospitality Industry Award (MA000009)
1 click
Payroll sync
Approved timesheets to Xero
6
Venues unified
One roster across the group
-9 hrs
Weekly admin
Saved per venue operations manager
“The Fair Work award interpretation in Rostey is flawless. Sunday penalty rates used to be a weekly bookkeeping nightmare. Now it is completely automated.”
The challenge
Craftworks operates six high-volume pubs and restaurants with split shifts, rotating weekend rosters and a large casual pool. Award interpretation was spread across three different bookkeeping methods: one venue used a template spreadsheet, two relied on the previous payroll officer's memory, and three had drifted into casual agreements that no longer reflected the Hospitality Industry (General) Award. Every public holiday triggered a full day of manual penalty rate recalculation, and the group had no way to prove wage compliance if Fair Work came knocking.
The Rostey solution
Rostey standardised all six venues on a single HIGA rule set. Split-shift allowances, Saturday and Sunday loadings, evening penalties and public holiday multipliers now apply the moment a shift is planned, so managers see the true wage cost of a roster before it is published.
Approved timesheets flow directly into Xero with the correct cost centres per venue. Group operations can compare labour as a percentage of sales across the portfolio from one dashboard instead of chasing six separate reports.
- Hospitality Industry (General) Award (MA000009) pre-configured group-wide
- Automatic split-shift, evening and weekend penalty calculation
- Open shift marketplace to fill last-minute surges from a qualified casual pool
- Venue-level cost centres and P&L-friendly wage reporting
- Digital record-keeping that satisfies Fair Work audit requirements
The results
Penalty rate disputes disappeared within the first pay cycle. Craftworks now reports 100% audit compliance, saves around nine administrative hours per venue every week, and can re-forecast labour across the group in minutes when a big booking lands. Casual overtime dropped sharply because the platform flags any shift that would push a team member into a multiplier before it is approved.
- Zero manual penalty rate recalculations since go-live
- Nine administrative hours saved per venue, per week
- Labour cost tracked against live POS revenue for every venue
- Complete, auditable digital wage records for all six sites
What's next for Craftworks Hospitality Group
Craftworks is now rolling Rostey's Shift Notes feature out to duty managers so handover between day and night service is logged against the venue instead of living in a group chat.
