Five FY27 Numbers Every AU Owner Should Calculate Before 30 June

Five weeks separate the BAS Q3 deadline on 26 May from the close of FY26 on 30 June. Inside that window, every Australian mid-market business should run five numbers.

The headline wage is the easiest number to see, so it is the number most business owners anchor on. Tversky and Kahneman showed in 1974 that an initial figure distorts subsequent estimation even when the original anchor is known to be irrelevant. Bordalo, Gennaioli and Shleifer formalised the pattern in 2012: the most visible attribute of a choice gets disproportionate weight. The headline wage is wrong as an anchor for one structural reason. Once you load superannuation at 12 per cent, leave loading at 17.5 per cent on award hours, payroll tax at between 4.85 and 6.85 per cent above the state threshold, workers compensation scheme premiums, and the Fair Work Commission's spillover into above-award employees, an Australian employer's true labour cost runs at approximately 1.30 to 1.45 times the base salary. The base wage is the smallest lever you have.

1: The Australian EOFY tooling market does not run the five numbers

Most EOFY content in Australia stops at the same places. A checklist of compliance dates. A payroll finalisation guide. A list of super contributions to top up before 30 June. The tools published by MYOB, Xero, the ATO and the mainstream HR-tech vendors are useful for compliance, but they are organised around tax events rather than around how a business actually spends money.

The Australian EOFY tooling market splits into three layers. The compliance layer (ATO, Fair Work Pay and Conditions Tool, MYOB and Xero EOFY hubs) handles tax dates, awards, STP finalisation and superannuation deadlines. The payroll and workforce layer (Employment Hero, KeyPay, ELMO, Deputy, Tanda) closes out the financial year inside the customer payroll system. The advisory layer (Big 4 thought leadership, mid-tier checklists from BDO, RSM, Findex, Pitcher Partners and William Buck, plus boutique firms publishing regional EOFY guides) provides commentary and gated diagnostics. PwC Australia's activity analysis powered by Orgvue, positioned publicly on 20 October 2025, is the activity-level offering visible in the Australian market today, and it is scoped for enterprise transformations involving thousands of roles.

No mid-tier accountant, HR-tech platform or business advisory has launched a productised activity-level cost decomposition service for the $5M to $50M revenue segment in the four weeks to 17 May 2026. For a scaling business in that bracket, the EOFY numbers that matter most are not on a BAS form. They are the activity-level numbers that show, for each task your team performs, what it costs to run and what it would cost to run differently.

2: The five numbers

Five calculations, in this order. Each one builds on the previous. Each one is something you can do with your own data inside the next five weeks.

What is your FY26 labour cost per activity by department?

Your activity-level labour cost baseline is the total cost of all tasks your business pays for in a given month, decomposed by activity type rather than aggregated by role.

This is the number most operators have never calculated. Payroll systems report by role and department. Workforce management software reports by shift and roster. Neither one tells you what bookkeeping data entry costs to run as a discrete task across the year, or what client onboarding costs, or what monthly compliance reporting costs. The decomposition is what gives you the lever. Without it, FY27 cost decisions are made against a fog of total headcount expense.

For a 25 FTE professional services firm with $4.118 million in starting payroll, the activity-level decomposition typically reveals between 18 and 24 distinct task categories, ranging from $40,000 to $620,000 per category per annum. The largest single category is rarely the most strategic. Most often it is bookkeeping data entry, client correspondence, or scheduling and onboarding administration. The activities that drive client outcomes and partner attention sit further down the list.

You build this number from a single source. Twelve months of payroll register, parsed by activity rather than by role.

What is your award-covered vs above-award hours mix?

Most mid-market owners assume the AWR percentage applies to most of their workforce. ABS May 2025 EEH data tells a sharper story: for a national-average mix, 22.7 per cent of employees have pay set by award, 34.6 per cent by individual arrangement, and 38.5 per cent by enterprise agreement. The Fair Work Commission's headline decision applies directly to less than a quarter of employees. RBA October 2024 Bulletin (Bishop and Day) confirms approximately 15 per cent spillover from FWC decisions into EBAs and approximately 10 per cent into individual arrangements.

The headline percentage is not the headline impact. For a retail business at 65 per cent award coverage, FY27 will bite hard and bite fast. For a professional services firm at 35 per cent award coverage, the direct impact is contained, but the EBA spillover is the silent number. If your firm has automatic re-pegging clauses in its practice or enterprise agreement, the FY27 increase applies to your above-award staff as well. The 35/65 split becomes 100 per cent exposure.

You build this number from your employment records. Count the heads, categorise the method of pay setting, weight by hours worked rather than by headcount.

What is your FY27 projected loaded cost at the FWC plausible band?

The Fair Work Commission's Annual Wage Review 2026 decision will land in the first or second week of June. FairWork Mate's February 2026 forecast placed the plausible band at 3.25 to 4 per cent, with 3.5 per cent named as the most likely outcome. The ABS Wage Price Index for the December 2025 quarter sat at 3.4 per cent private sector growth. The ACTU has lodged a 5 per cent claim. The three points (ABS WPI 3.4 per cent floor, 3.5 per cent base case, 5 per cent ACTU ceiling) define the band.

Project your FY27 loaded cost increment at all three. Take the award-covered FTE count from Number 2, multiply by the average award-base annual cost, multiply by each of the three rates, then load the result at the cascade multiplier of approximately 1.20x for the award-covered cohort. Repeat the calculation with EBA re-pegging at half-rate for 30 per cent of your above-award cohort.

A worked example. Thirty award-covered FTE at $62,000 average annual cost equals $1.86 million. The 3.5 per cent base case headline lift equals $65,100. Superannuation, payroll tax, workers compensation and leave loading load this at approximately 1.20x. The true FY27 loaded cost increment lands at approximately $78,120 for that cohort, before EBA re-pegging.

Tables A (no re-pegging) and B (30 per cent re-pegging at half-rate) carry the FTE-scale ranges. Both sit in the Activity Analysis Session for state-specific workings.

Which activities are AI-augmentable or offshore-replicable?

This is the number the calculator cannot give you alone.

The activity classification is a judgement layer, not a measurement. For each task category you identified in Number 1, decide whether it can be augmented by AI tooling, executed offshore in a regulated jurisdiction such as the Philippines, or whether it has to stay onshore with your existing team. The judgement turns on three questions. Does the task require physical presence or client-facing relationship continuity? Does the task carry sovereign data residency or licensing constraints? Does the task have variability that current AI tooling cannot bracket inside a defined error rate?

Outrun's 90,000+ monthly activity data points across active client engagements give us the boundary lines on what crosses each test today. Bookkeeping data entry crosses both lines (AI augmentable and offshore replicable). Partner client review crosses neither. Onboarding administration crosses both. Tax position commentary crosses neither. The exact split depends on your sector, your client mix, and your internal capability map.

The five-number framework gives you the model. The activity classification gives you the decision. The Activity Analysis Session is built to put them together.

What is your offshore-replicable activity inventory in dollars?

Take the activities you classified as offshore-replicable in Number 4. Sum their FY26 costs. Apply the Outrun activity-level cost savings band of 60 to 75 per cent. That is your FY27 reinvestment envelope.

For a 25 FTE professional services firm, the typical offshore-replicable activity inventory sits at approximately $1.05 million in FY26 cost. Apply the 60 to 75 per cent band and the reinvestment envelope lands at approximately $630,000 to $787,500. For a 35 FTE retail business with a heavier ecommerce admin and bookkeeping pool, the inventory typically sits at approximately $475,000 in FY26 cost. Apply the band and the envelope lands at approximately $285,000 to $356,000.

These are not theoretical numbers. They are the numbers business owners we work with see when they run the full decomposition. The reinvestment can go to senior-tier capability you have been deferring for two years, to product investment, to debt reduction, or to a price hold against FY27 cost pressure.

Want your own number? The Outrun Task Savings Calculator runs your sector and your task mix against 90,000+ activity-level data points. About two minutes, no signup.

Sidebar: hospitality at 25 FTE

Hospitality is the sharpest single illustration of the framework. For a 25 FTE hospitality group with starting payroll of $1.593 million and 75 per cent award coverage, the headline 3.5 per cent FY27 lift looks like $33,500. Once you load superannuation, leave loading, payroll tax and workers compensation, the cascade increment lands at approximately $40,200. Re-peg the head chef and one senior service lead at half-rate and the number lifts to approximately $44,000.

The offshore-replicable activity inventory across rostering, ordering, compliance preparation and bookkeeping typically sits between $84,000 and $97,000 per annum. The Outrun band of 60 to 75 per cent activity-level cost savings applies. Hospitality margins are already tight. The five numbers tell hospitality operators where the margin actually sits and which tasks belong inside the venue versus outside it.

3: Retail at 35 FTE: the second worked example

Retail is 65 per cent award-covered nationally and runs the largest direct FY27 loaded-cost impact in absolute dollar terms. For a 35 FTE retailer with $2.4 million in starting payroll, the FY27 cascade increment lands at approximately $64,400 at the 3.5 per cent base case. The ecommerce admin, bookkeeping and inventory management pool typically carries $358,000 in addressable activity-level cost. Apply the Outrun band and the envelope lands at approximately $215,000 to $269,000 per annum.

The math is sharp in both directions. Direct loaded-cost pressure is up. Addressable activity-level cost is sitting on the books, waiting to be reallocated. The five numbers force the question of which one to act on first.

4: How to run these five numbers in the Task Savings Calculator V5

The Task Savings Calculator V5 takes the inputs from Numbers 1, 2, 3 and 5 and produces the FY27 loaded-cost projection and the addressable activity-level cost envelope in a single output. Sector preset, FTE count, award-coverage percentage, average award base, and offshore-replicable task hours per category. About two minutes, no signup, no email gate.

The calculator does not produce Number 4. Number 4 is a conversation. The Activity Analysis Session is the one-hour walkthrough that translates Number 4 into the keep, augment, offshore decision against your actual organisation chart.

Tables use a blended national workers compensation rate of 1.34 per cent (Safe Work Australia 29th Edition, 2023). FY26 state-specific rates run materially higher (VIC 1.80 per cent, NSW carries an 8 per cent capped increase from icare, WA 1.82 per cent, ACT 2.00 per cent). For state-specific impact, the Activity Analysis Session walks the cascade against your jurisdiction.

5: The 35-day BAS-to-EOFY window

Five weeks separate BAS Q3 lodgement on 26 May from the close of FY26 on 30 June. FBT returns and payment land on 28 May. Super guarantee Q3 lands on 28 May. Inside the window, the five numbers are calculable from data your business already files. Outside the window, the FY27 decision lands on the same calendar week as the FWC handing down its actual outcome.

Run Numbers 1 and 2 by 5 June. Run Number 3 once the AWR 2026 outcome is published in the second week of June. Run Numbers 4 and 5 in the third week of June. By 25 June you have the model and the reinvestment envelope. That gives five working days before EOFY to put the FY27 operating model in writing.

6: What to do with the result before 30 June

The activity portfolio is a leadership artefact, not a finance artefact. Once Numbers 1 through 5 are calculated, the question shifts from cost modelling to operating model design. Where does the activity-level operating model concentrate partner attention and senior-tier capability? Where does it concentrate cost? Are those the same activities, or are they crossing each other? The activity reinvestment envelope makes the answer to that question fundable.

For the FY27 operating model, three decisions deserve to sit at the EOFY board meeting. Which activities your business should keep onshore with current team. Which activities to augment with AI tooling and current team. Which activities to deliver offshore in a regulated jurisdiction with senior-tier oversight retained onshore. The Activity Analysis Session is the one-hour walkthrough that takes the five numbers from quantitative anchor to operating-model decision. Book it before 30 June if you want the decision in writing for FY27 start.

If you want the longer methodological frame for why the 35-day window matters and what the FWC plausible band actually contains, read the W10 piece on the FY27 modelling window.

7: For New Zealand readers

Reading from New Zealand? NZ FY27 began on 1 April 2026 with the 31 March balance date, so the modelling window you needed has already closed. The methodology question, not the calendar question, is what still applies. The five-number framework, the cascade multiplier, the activity classification and the reinvestment envelope all hold across jurisdictions; only the calendar anchor and the Fair Work Commission dependency are Australia-specific. Our companion piece, The FY27 Cost Review: Why Activity-Level Analysis Beats Role-Level Budgeting, walks through the activity-level approach for the New Zealand calendar.

Acknowledgement: this piece publishes during National Reconciliation Week (27 May to 3 June 2026). Outrun acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of the land on which our Australian work takes place and pays respect to Elders past and present.

Run your sector and your task mix against 90,000+ activity-level data points. About two minutes, no signup. Open the calculator

Activity Analysis Session. One-hour walkthrough with an Outrun consultant to translate the five numbers into the keep, augment, offshore decision against your actual organisation chart. Book a session