What happens if super is refunded or returned?¶

Money can come back for three different reasons, and what you need to do differs for each.

When a fund rejects an employee's contribution¶

Once Beam sends contributions on, the receiving funds typically take three business days to process them. A fund that can't process one will reject it and send the money back.

The contribution then shows Needs attention, with a message telling you how many employees were affected:

"1 employee's super was refunded or not accepted — the money was returned and has not reached the fund. Fix the fund details, then re-lodge."

The important part: that employee's super has not been paid. It's still outstanding.

Finding out which employee, and why¶

Step 1. Open the contribution from Payroll → Super.

Step 2. Look at the employee list. A refunded employee shows Refunded with the date, in red.

Step 3. Scroll to Activity at the bottom. The fund's response appears under Message from Beam, carrying the fund's own reason and its error code.

Beam passes the fund's response through rather than rewriting it, so what you see is what the fund actually said.

Fixing it¶

Step 4. Correct the employee's details on their Superannuation tab using Edit Super Details.

The details that most often cause a rejection are the same ones member verification checks — a membership number that doesn't match, a name or date of birth that differs from the fund's records, or an account that's been closed. Check the fund's USI too, or for a self-managed fund its ABN and electronic service address.

If you're unsure the details are right, ask the fund to confirm them first — see How do I verify an employee's super fund?

Re-sending with an amendment¶

You can't simply lodge the original contribution again. Every contribution sent to Beam carries its own unique identifier, so one that has already been submitted can't be submitted a second time.

Instead, myaccountant creates an amendment — a new contribution linked to the original, containing only the employees whose super came back.

Step 5. On the contribution, choose to create the amendment. myaccountant builds it as a Draft containing just the affected employees.

Step 6. Review it, then validate and lodge it like any other contribution.

The original contribution stays as it is, showing what happened. The amendment carries the outstanding super.

Partly successful contributions¶

A contribution can succeed for some employees and not others. It then shows Sent with refund — the accepted employees are done, and only the refunded ones need re-sending.

When you've overpaid¶

If you pay Beam more than the contribution total, Beam continues processing the contribution exactly as you lodged it, and refunds the excess to your nominated bank account.

Your employees' super is unaffected. There's nothing to re-send.

If you pay less than the total, Beam sends instructions to pay the shortfall rather than refunding anything.

When the whole contribution is refunded¶

A status of Refunded means the entire contribution was returned, not one employee's share. This is rare — it happens when every fund in the contribution has become unable to receive it between you lodging and the payment clearing.

None of the super has been paid, so the contribution needs to be lodged again once the fund details are sorted out.

Related guides¶

• What does each super payment status mean?
• How does paying super work?
• How do I verify an employee's super fund?
• How do I add super fund details for an employee?