A new survey by payroll tech firm Yellow Canary found that just 22% of Australian businesses have adopted proactive payroll compliance technology. Still, more may follow as they seek to reduce the legal and business risk of underpaying employees. Intentional employee underpayments were made a criminal offense on Jan. 5 following amendments to Australia’s Fair Work legislation, with individuals and businesses now potentially liable. While unintentional mistakes will not attract criminal penalties, Yellow Canary estimates underpayments represent between 1% and 3% of total headcount costs across the market. The Yellow Canary survey of 533 compliance leaders in Australia found the rising risk around underpayments is driving more tech buyers toward proactive payroll compliance tools: 23% plan to adopt technologies in the next one to two years. 21% of businesses plan to implement these tools in the next 12 months. 17% said they were satisfied with manual compliance processes. 15% were curious about more proactive payroll technologies but had no plans to implement them. “The introduction of the Closing Loopholes Acts, including the criminalisation of wage …