Each pay period a summary of Year To Date payroll data must be sent to the ATO. This guide will explain how this is done and the best practice to get successful submissions.
Menu > Payroll > Payruns > Payslip > STP Lodge
| EOFY | End Of Financial Year |
| ETP | Employment Termination Payment |
| Final | Last STP submission for this employee for the financial year |
| PAYG | Pay As You Go - Employee tax obligation |
| SBR | Standard Business Reporting - The gateway used to talk to the ATO |
| STP | Single Touch Payroll |
| TFND | Tax File Number Declaration - Required from all staff when first hired |
| YTD | Year To Date - All STP data is YTD |
Single Touch Payroll (STP) is a method of reporting payroll data (salaries and wages, PAYG withholding and superannuation) electronically to the ATO. The payroll data is sent from your payroll software to the ATO via a service called SBR (Standard Business Reporting).
The data must go through a software solution at some point, thus using a cloud payroll provider like Microkeeper does all the heavy lifting on your behalf.
STP is designed to streamline payroll reporting. Once fully implemented, a few tasks will be eliminated from the payroll officer and HR duties. This includes:
One way to think of STP is like submitting a Group Certificate every payrun.
STP data must be submitted when payroll is processed, thus your employee on boarding processes will have to be efficient and timely.
Employers are going to need to run a tight ship, especially those with high staff turnover rates as they're going to need to collect all relative data from their staff before their first payrun is processed.
Microkeeper has integrated Single Touch Payroll heavily into the application, thus we help collect all relevant data from the employee as soon as they first login including the TFND fields.
All payments and deductions can be classified with the appropriate STP classification on the Payslip.
The table below shows a list of all possible classifications.
Only staff that are included in a payrun are included in a submission via STP, this means terminated/inactive staff will not be included.
When an employee is first added to Microkeeper they should be provided with their login credentials.
Staff should log in and, from the Employee Console, fill all fields required, they should know all fields required for STP with the exception of the TFN.
If the staff member doesn't have a TFN they should apply for one immediately, the employer can insert a temporary place holding TFN if required.
Except for the Final STP submission, Microkeeper only reports on staff that have been included in a payrun with PAYG tax or Gross value greater than 0 to the ATO.
Thus, when an employee is receiving their last payslip from the business, this should be marked as Final.
Step 1 Process a payrun as normal.
Step 2 Click the Final button on the employees payslip.
Step 3 Review the Final form and apply ready for STP submission.
The Final button on the Payslip will set the Employee as Terminated set the Termination date and mark the Payslip as Final.
Warning:
If an employee is terminated AFTER an STP submission they will not be included in the next payrun, thus the ATO will not receive a Final STP submission until the last STP submission for the year.
If an employee is rehired or reactivated a few steps need to be followed.
Step 1 Go into the Employees Profile and set the employee as Active.
Step 2 Remove the Terminated Date.
Step 3 Set a new Start Date.
The next time the employee is included in a payrun, their payslip will not be marked as Final and the ATO will know they have commenced work again.
Make sure to double check all the employee's details are still current.
When the last payrun for the year is processed select the Final option.
All staff, including previously terminated staff will be included in the Final submission for the current fiscal year.
When Microkeeper sends this data all staff are marked as Final in the STP submission.
This is the most important submission as this will be the submission staff complete their tax returns with.
Ensure total tax and total values match your accounting suite.
There are 4 main parties involved to make STP possible if any one party doesn't fill their obligation in a timely manner, STP will not be successful.
| Staff obligations | Employer obligations | Microkeeper obligations | SBR ATO obligations |
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1. Review all the Payroll rules.
Review all Shift Rules, Extra Rules, Deductions Rules and Public Holiday Rules. Select the correct STP classification.
For example: "Car allowance" select STP class "Car"
The option Employee Profile - Tax is used to automatically select the correct STP class from the employee's profile.
For example: Employee Tax set to Australian Resident then the STP class Individual Non-Business will be selected when payroll is processed.
If the setup is completed successfully, the next time payroll is processed all the correct STP classifications will be selected automatically.
2. Add your Software ID to Access Manager
Settings > General > Global
Copy your Software ID
Access Manager https://am.ato.gov.au
Login and go to My hosted SBR software services
Search for Microkeeper and Paste your Software ID
All PAYG tax amounts are recorded in a single tax field, so we don't have the ability to split out the ETP tax value, this is a limitation of the system.
So instead Microkeeper ratios out the ETP tax amounts based on earnings, it won't always be perfectly correct, but the Total Tax will be correct.
Here are the calculation steps example:
The ATO might say for example, the ETP Tax is undertaxed by $ 50, however the INB tax is overtaxed by $ 50, so no further action is required.
| Steps | Title | Description |
| 1 | Review staff details | Ensure all staff details are complete and accurate, especially for any newly hired employees. |
2 | Process payroll | Process payroll as usual. Make sure all payments are classified correctly. Run Final button on staff that need to be terminated. Pay staff and Lock payrun as per usual. |
3 | Validate | Click ATO lodge. Microkeeper will run validation on all data and provide an STP report to review the data that will be submitted to the ATO. If Microkeeper's validation fails, you will not be able to submit payroll data until all required fields are filled. You will be supplied with an error that will include a list of missing values and which staff are affected. |
| 4 | Submit | Digitally sign the form and submit the STP data. |
5 | Review | After a response has been returned from the ATO, you can review and check to see if your submission was successful. If the submission to the ATO fails, the ATO will reply with a list of errors that are (hopefully) human-friendly. |
The specifications from the ATO are incredibly complicated, therefore Microkeeper has simplified the breakdown of the options into a single list and automated the reporting from there.
This chart will help select the correct payment or deduction option/s, however, if you're not sure of a classification, Microkeeper cannot legally assist. You will need to refer to the ATO website or contact legal assistance.
There are many other fields that need to be filled but everything else is either self-explanatory or automatically filled by Microkeeper.
Some fields have been hidden but are available upon request.
| Microkeeper Code | Microkeeper Title | ATO Brief Description |
| Normal earnings | ||
| {NULL} | Individual Non-Business | Include all salary, wages, bonuses, and commissions paid to the payee as an employee, company director or office holder. Include the total gross amount before amounts are withheld. Gross payments also include pensions and annuities; compensation, and sickness or accident pay. Also include the following amounts: - Allowances you paid to compensate for specific working conditions and payments for special qualifications or extended hours. - Allowances you paid to cover expenses that are not tax deductible to the payee. For example: - Normal home-to-work transport expenses - Holiday pay or bonuses, - Amounts you paid for unused long service leave, unused holiday pay and other leave-related payments that accrued after 17 August 1993, |
| WHM | Working Holiday Makers | The amount earned by the Working Holiday Maker for the relevant period. |
| LHA | Labour Hire Arrangement | The amount of gross income earned by an individual worker through a labour hire firm without establishing a contractual arrangement with the worker. |
| FR | Foreign Resident | The total of all gross payments made to the foreign resident payee for the financial year. |
| SKIP | Skip STP reporting | The payment will not be included in STP reporting, this can be used to for director drawings for example. |
| Allowances | ||
| Car | Car | Car expense allowance. |
| Transport | Transport | Award transport payments up to reasonable amounts. |
| Laundry | Laundry | Laundry allowances. |
| Meals | Meals | Award overtime meal allowance. |
| Travel | Travel | Domestic or overseas travel allowance above the reasonable limit and all overseas accommodation allowances. |
| Other | Other | All other allowances for expected deductible expenses. |
| Employee Termination Payments ETP | ||
| ETP_R_T | Type R - Taxable | ETP made because of one of the following: early retirement scheme, genuine redundancy, invalidity, or compensation for personal injury, unfair dismissal, harassment, or discrimination. |
| ETP_R_F | Type R - Fax-Free | As above line except for tax-free component. |
| ETP_O_T | Type O - Taxable | Other ETP not described by R (for example: golden handshake, gratuity, payment in lieu of notice, payment for unused sick leave, or payment for unused rostered days off). |
| ETP_O_F | Type O - Fax-Free | As above line except for tax-free component. |
| ETP_S_T | Type S - Taxable | ETP code R payment received in the current year and received another ETP (code R or code O), or a transitional termination payment, in an earlier income year for the same termination of employment. |
| ETP_S_F | Type S - Fax-Free | As above line except for tax-free component. |
| ETP_P_T | Type P - Taxable | ETP code O payment received in the current year and received another ETP (code R or code O), or a transitional termination payment, in an earlier income year for the same termination of employment. |
| ETP_P_F | Type P - Fax-Free | As above line except for tax-free component. |
| ETP_D_T | Type D | Death benefit ETP paid to a dependant of the deceased. |
| ETP_B_T | Type B | Death benefit ETP paid to a non-dependant of the deceased and a termination payment was made to the non-dependant in a previous income year for the same termination. |
| ETP_N_T | Type N | Death benefit ETP paid to a non-dependant of the deceased. |
| ETP_T_T | Type T | Death benefit ETP paid to a trustee of the deceased estate. |
| Lump Sum Payments | ||
| Lump_A_R | Lump A - Type R | Type R = Where payment was for a genuine redundancy, invalidity or under an early retirement scheme. Lump A = The amount paid for unused long service leave that accrued after 15 August 1978 but before 18 August 1993; unused holiday pay and other leave-related payments that accrued before 18 August 1993 or unused long service leave accrued after 17 August 1993 or unused holiday pay or related payments, where the amount was paid in connection with a payment that includes or consists of a genuine redundancy payment, an early retirement scheme payment or the invalidity segment of an employment termination payment or superannuation payment. |
| Lump_A_T | Lump A - Type T | Type T = Where payment was not a payment for a genuine redundancy, invalidity or under an early retirement scheme. Lump A = Description above |
| Lump_B | Lump B | The amount paid for unused long service leave that accrued before 16 August 1978. |
| Lump_D | Lump D | The amount of genuine redundancy payment or early retirement scheme payment below the tax-free threshold. |
| Lump_E | Lump E | The amount of back payment received including salary or wages that accrued in a period more than 12 months before the date of payment. |
| Expenses | ||
| Super | Salary Sacrifice or any super amount above the super guarantee. | |
| Fringe benefit | Reportable Fringe Benefit | |
| Deductions | ||
| Workplace Giving | Workplace giving is a simple way to regularly donate to charities or organisations that are entitled to receive tax-deductible donations. | |
| Fees | Union fees, subscriptions to associations and bargaining agents fees, can be entitled to receive a tax deduction. | |
| Hidden STP fields available on request | ||
All details mentioned in the above table are not legal advice, please refer to the ATO website or get legal assistance when classifying payments or deductions.
