AgriSmart’s task management tools make it easy to assign, track, and complete work across your farm. From seasonal harvests to daily maintenance, you can monitor progress in real time, allocate responsibilities to the right team members, and ensure nothing is missed. Keep your workflow organised, your team aligned, and every task visible in one central dashboard.
PALM Workforce Management
The 120-hour rule, piece rate minimums, and Award conditions tracked automatically for every PALM worker, all season.
AgriSmart counts every four-week window as hours are captured in the field, checks piece earnings against the hourly minimum, and flags any worker approaching a threshold while there’s still time to adjust the roster. The scrutiny that comes with PALM doesn’t change, but what it finds does.
120-Hour Compliance
Designed for the Field
Underpayment Protection
Worker Health & Safety
Audit-Ready Records
More Workers Means More Responsibility
PALM solves your labour shortage, but it also puts you under the microscope. When you employ PALM workers, regulators and auditors pay attention. That means every hour needs to be tracked, every piece rate needs to be checked against the minimum hourly rate and your records need to hold up under scrutiny.
As a PALM employer in horticulture you’re responsible for:
Offering at least 120 hours over every 4-week period for every short-term PALM worker
Piece rates meeting the hourly minimum each pay period
Overtime paid when thresholds are crossed
Correct rates on every public holiday
Records that hold up to review
An App Your Workers Can Actually Use
Your PALM crew shouldn’t need to understand Australian employent law to clock in correctly.
Simple Screens
Easy To Use App
Built For Farm Crews
Built for PALM Scale in Horticulture
Meet the 120-Hour Minimum
The obligation most PALM employers don’t know about until it’s too late
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Under the PALM scheme, employers must offer short-term workers at least 120 hours over every 4-week period, an average of 30 hours a week. If you offer less, you have to top up the worker’s pay for the shortfall. Across a crew of 60 or 80 workers, tracking this manually isn’t realistic.
AgriSmart monitors every worker’s hours against the minimum automatically. You see who is tracking below the threshold while there is still time to offer more work or prepare the top-up, not after payroll has already run.
An App Your PALM Crew Can Actually Use
Built for workers with limited English and little smartphone experience
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Most workforce apps are built for office staff. AgriSmart is built for the field.
Workers clock in and out using simple icons, no English required. The interface supports multiple Pacific languages. Supervisors don’t need to chase people up or translate instructions.
When workers can see their own hours in real time, disputes don’t start. And when records are accurate from day one, everyone gets paid correctly.
Less Admin. More Control.
Replace spreadsheets, paper timesheets, and manual chasing
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Most PALM operators are still running compliance on spreadsheets, paper timesheets, or a combination of both. It works, until the crew hits 50+ people and harvest is two weeks in.
AgriSmart replaces all of it. Time capture happens in the field. Supervisors approve on their phone. Managers see everything in real time. Payroll receives clean, compliant data, no corrections, no reconstruction.
Health and Safety Built In
Incident reporting from the field, not a form on a desk.
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PALM employers carry duty of care obligations alongside their Award compliance requirements. Managing health and safety across a large seasonal crew on multiple sites is genuinely difficult.
AgriSmart includes built-in incident and hazard reporting directly from the worker app. Issues are logged, timestamped, and visible to managers immediately, no paper forms, no delays, no reliance on workers finding someone to tell.
Payroll-Ready Before the Run
Your payroll team receives clean data, not a problem to solve.
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Award errors are far easier to prevent than fix. By the time a payroll run surfaces a compliance gap, you’re already behind.
AgriSmart applies Award logic at the point of time capture, piece rates checked, overtime flagged, public holidays recognised. What reaches your payroll system is already compliant. No manual review. No last-minute corrections. No underpayment risk.
If Fair Work Calls, You’ll Be Ready
Complete records, traceable approvals, one report.
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PALM employers attract greater regulatory attention. When Fair Work reviews your operation, they’ll ask how Award conditions were applied, across every worker, every pay period, all season.
AgriSmart generates that documentation automatically. Hours, overtime, piece rate checks, public holiday treatment, supervisor approvals, all of it structured, timestamped, and exportable in one report.
See It in 15 Minutes
We’ll show you how AgriSmart handles the 120-hour minimum, piece rates, and compliance records, using your type of operation as the example.
When PALM Scale Increases Award Risk
PALM solves your labour shortage, but it also puts you under the microscope. When you employ PALM workers, regulators and auditors pay attention. That means every hour needs to be tracked, every piece rate needs to be checked against the minimum hourly rate and your records need to hold up under scrutiny.
In horticulture, workforce demand is:
Seasonal
Weather driven
Scales rapidly
Large intakes
As crews expand, operational pressure increases: At scale, manual processes break down:
120-hour minimum missed without warning
Overtime missed because no one’s counting
Piece rate checks skipped under time pressure
Records reconstructed after the fact
Documentation that doesn’t hold up when it matters
If Fair Work Calls, You’ll Be Ready
AgriSmart creates documented compliance records including:
Hours offered and worked against the 120-hour minimum, per worker, per 4-week period
Time and activity logs, timestamped by block
Overtime detection with threshold calculations
Piece rate hourly checks per pay period
Public holiday recognition logs
Supervisor approvals
Full audit reports, exportable on demand
AgriSmart builds your compliance record automatically. Every decision is traceable. Every threshold is documented. You’re not reconstructing history under pressure.
Control Award Compliance
Before Payroll Runs
Award errors are far easier to prevent than fix, especially when small gaps scale across 80+ workers.
AgriSmart applies Award logic at the point of time capture. Your payroll team receives clean, compliant data. No corrections, no catch-up, no risk.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the 120-hour rule under the PALM scheme?
PALM scheme employers must offer short-term workers a minimum of 120 hours of work over each four-week period, which averages to 30 hours per week. It is a minimum the employer is required to provide, not a maximum the worker must stay under. If an employer does not offer at least 120 hours over the period, they must top up the worker’s pay to make up the difference.
Is the 120-hour requirement part of the Horticulture Award?
No. The 120-hour minimum comes from the PALM scheme Deed of Agreement and guidelines, administered by the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations, not the Horticulture Award. The Award governs pay rates, piece rate minimums, overtime, and penalties. The two sets of obligations apply alongside each other, so PALM employers need to meet both.
What happens if an employer does not offer enough hours?
If fewer than 120 hours are offered across the four-week period, the employer must top up the worker’s pay for the shortfall, calculated at the worker’s base rate of pay. Hours that were offered but refused by the worker still count as offered, so no top-up is required in that case. AgriSmart tracks hours offered and worked against the minimum so a shortfall is visible during the period, not after payroll has run.
How is the four-week reconciliation period measured?
The four weeks are fixed blocks aligned to the employer’s pay cycle, starting from the worker’s first full week of work. Part weeks, including a worker’s arrival and departure and public holidays, are counted on a pro rata basis. AgriSmart records hours per worker across each reconciliation period so the running total is always current.
What other pay protections apply to PALM workers?
Alongside the minimum hours requirement, a minimum net pay guarantee ensures a worker’s take-home pay is at least $200 in a week, and employers must cover accommodation and transport costs in any week where fewer than 20 hours are offered. These protections sit on top of the worker’s normal Award entitlements for the hours they work.
How do Horticulture Award obligations apply to PALM workers?
For the hours PALM workers actually work, the Horticulture Award applies in full. That includes the piece rate setting standard and daily minimum wage guarantee, public holiday penalty rates, and correct rates for any hourly-paid work. AgriSmart applies this Award logic at the point of time capture so the data reaching payroll is already correct.
What records help with PALM and Fair Work compliance?
AgriSmart keeps a structured record of hours offered and worked against each four-week period, any top-ups applied, piece rate checks, public holiday treatment, and supervisor approvals, all timestamped and exportable. These records support both PALM scheme reconciliation and a Fair Work review.
- Payroll
- Timesheets
- Ticketing & Traceability
- Digital Hiring
- Rosters
- Health & Safety
- Task Management
- Spray Diary
- Equipment Register
Timesheets
Staff record time effortlessly with our iOS and Android app, even offline. For added flexibility, hours can be entered manually or through biometric devices in the shed. Every entry flows into payroll and rosters, giving you accurate pay runs, better scheduling, and a clear record of hours worked.
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Ticketing & Traceability
Purpose-built for horticulture, our bin ticketing system brings accuracy and control to your harvest. Track every bin from block to shed with full visibility over quantities, picker performance, and bin movements. Improve harvest efficiency, reduce waste, and strengthen quality control, all while keeping costs in check.
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Rosters
Build and share rosters in minutes with AgriSmart’s scheduling tools. Assign the right people at the right time and keep everyone updated instantly through the mobile app. Staff see shifts as soon as they are published, reducing confusion and last-minute calls. Approved changes flow into timesheets and payroll, keeping your team clear, records accurate, and compliant.
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Spray Diary
Designed for horticulture, our spray diary makes it easy to log chemical applications, including sprays, fertigation, and dry treatments. Record details once, stay audit ready, and meet compliance standards with less admin. The system keeps records accurate, centralised, and field ready for reliable reporting.
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Equipment Register
Keep tools, vehicles and machinery organised in one digital system. Track photos, details, documents and servicing in structured asset profiles. Set automated maintenance reminders, store full histories and keep equipment compliant, safe and ready to work across every site.
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