NOTE: PayrollGuru (PG) has been decommissioned and is in "read only" mode.
Please contact our the Easy Employer Support Team if you need further assistance.
2) Payroll Guru - pay run elements
(i) Allowances
(ii) PG allowance settings
(i) FBT amounts
(ii) Terminations
(iii) Lump sum payments
(iv) Deductions
(v) Ad-hoc pay run
3) Payroll Guru - How To Generate STP Reporting
4) Handling of errors identified by the ATO
5) Frequently Asked Questions
5a) What do I do if I get an error during the STP process that I cannot resolve?
5b) What do I do if I’ve made a mistake in the payrun & I've already sent the payfile to the ATO?
5c) How do I do EOFY STP final payfile reporting with Payroll Guru?
5d) I’m moving to Payroll Guru mid FY - what do I need to do?
1) Overview
Single Touch Payroll (STP) is a new way of reporting tax and super information to the ATO. Each payrun (including regular and ad hoc payruns) need to have a payfile generated and sent to the ATO.
Payroll Guru has been set up to comply with STP reporting.
The Payroll Guru platform will allow the automatic reporting of some elements of a payroll and the manual reporting of some additional elements of a payrun.
ATO Resources:
The ATO have developed detailed Single Touch Payroll employer reporting guidelines to help you understand all the requirements of STP. This includes what you need to report, how to make corrections and finalising your STP data. Information on this can be found on the ATO website under Single Touch Payroll employer reporting guidelines.
STP reporting in Payroll Guru will continue to be worked on over the coming months - making STP even easier to manage within PG.
In order to use Payroll Guru to handle STP reporting requirements, a payroll administrator will need to be familiar with the STP process and the information being reported. More information on this can be found on the ATO website under Single Touch Payroll employer reporting guidelines.
Sending to ATO
Once a payroll administrator has completed all payroll steps in PG (for either a regular or an ad hoc payrun), an STP payfile needs to be generated and approved for submission.
Once the payfile has been submitted, it will be processed and sent to the ATO to fulfill STP reporting requirements.
The ATO will process the submission and will send either a success, or an "error' notification. The notification will detail any errors or issues with the file. Any issues or errors will need to be addressed before re-submitting the file.
Any payfiles with errors will be documented in Payroll Guru (in the payroll period screen), and our support team are available to help correct and resubmit any payfiles that experience issues.
REMEMBER: There is no need to panic about your STP payfile.
- STP gets submitted AFTER the payrun is completed. It will not delay a payrun.
- STP payfiles should be submitted the day of the payrun - but the ATO is showing leniency for payfiles that are submitted late.
- STP payfiles need to be SUBMITTED IN ORDER! Payfiles use cumulative figures - so sending payfiles out of order will mess up the values. So do not attempt to submit payfiles for older payruns.
- Nothing is set in stone until the last payrun of the financial year - so there is always a chance to rectify any issues.
2) Payroll Guru - pay run elements
2a) Standard Pay run Elements
A standard pay run involves the requirement to send the following details to the ATO via the STP payfile.
- Company details
- Employee details
- Employee pay details
- PAYG
- Super - both employer liability and employee contribution.
- Headers specifying whether its amendment, submit or update event.
- Payrun summary details
- Allowances
i) Allowances
This table represents the ATO’s rules on how allowances should be processed.
| Table 1b - STP pay events for types of allowances an employee might receive | |||
|
Allowance type**** |
Include in gross payment? | Include in PAYGW for gross income type? | Include in allowance tuple? |
| Working conditions, qualifications or special duties | Yes | Yes | No |
| Non-deductible expenses | Yes |
Yes |
No |
| Deductible expenses | No | Yes | Yes |
| On-call allowance (ordinary hours) | Yes | Yes | No |
| On-call allowance (outside ordinary hours) | Yes | Yes | No |
ii) PG Allowance Settings
Every year you should be setting up your base configuration for allowances.
This should only be set up once - at the start of the financial year OR before commencement of STP reporting through Payroll Guru.
WARNING: The allowance settings flow through STP reporting - Changing the configuration of any allowances in the middle of a financial year will cause these figures to not line up correctly in the final tax figures the employee uses through their portal.
You can find the allowances setup page by clicking the “allowance setup” link in the Company section of PG. Set up all of your allowances and configurations here:
2b) Advanced payrun elements
Advanced payrun elements need to be dealt with a bit differently to fulfill STP requirements, either as:
- data to be input DURING your payrun,
- an ad hoc payrun (which then needs it's own payfile submitted)
- an EOY final payfile submission.
i) FBT amounts
- This gets reported in full in an EOY final payfile submission.
- Continue to do what you normally do.
- Do not enter it into any payfiles or do anything further.
- We will update you towards the end of EOFY 19/20 - on how to submit this through on your final payfile submission.
ii) Terminations
- Terminations will need to be run as an ad hoc payrun
- This will generate its own pay event file for reporting to the ATO.
- You must generate and submit the payfile to the ATO - as per Step 2: How to Generate STP reporting.
Click on this link in your payrun:
In this section input the termination payment details:
iii) Lump sum payments
- This will need to be run as an ad hoc payrun
- This will generate its own pay event file for reporting to the ATO.
- You must generate and submit the payfile to the ATO - as per Step 2: How to Generate STP reporting.
Click on this link in your payrun:
In this section input the lump sum payment details:
iv) Deductions
These need to be addressed via manual input DURING your payrun.
Click on this link in your payrun:
In this section input the deductions payment details:
v) Ad-hoc payrun
- Ad hoc payruns are run for terminations, lump sums etc. ...or for whatever other reason you need to do an ad-hoc payrun i.e. someone was missed from a normal payrun, underpaid, pay corrections etc.
- These are done as per normal ad hoc payrun process.
- This will generate its own pay event file for reporting to the ATO.
- You must generate and submit the payfile to the ATO - as per Step 2: How to Generate STP reporting.
3) Payroll Guru - How To Generate STP Reporting
- Process your pay run or ad hoc pay run as normal and PG will submit your STP payfile for you.
Your payrun (whether it be a regular or an ad hoc payrun) must be processed in full within PG as per normal, before generating STP data.
- A couple days after you run your pay run go back in and make sure the STP Status says "success"
- If the status says anything other than success please email support@easyemployer.com and include a screen shot or the payrun process date and time.
- If the status says anything other than success please email support@easyemployer.com and include a screen shot or the payrun process date and time.
4) Handling of errors identified by the ATO
If your submitted payfile has any additional errors that were not identified by our systems the ATO will automatically send back an error message.
You can see if there have been any errors with any of your payruns as the STP status will not say "success".
- If the status says anything other than success please email support@easyemployer.com and include a screen shot or the payrun process date and time.
5) Frequently Asked Questions
5a) What do I do if I get an error during the STP process that I cannot resolve?
Contact support@easyemployer.com
- Put “PAYROLL GURU” in the heading.
We will look at your files and contact you to advise what has gone wrong.
5b) What do I do if I’ve made a mistake in the payrun & I've already sent the payfile to the ATO?
If you’ve made a mistake in a payrun in PG AND you’ve already submitted the payfile - please contact us and we will advise you how to proceed.
Contact support@easyemployer.com
- Put “PAYROLL GURU” in the heading.
- Provide us a full explanation/rundown of what mistake you believe you have made.
We will look at your data and contact you to advise what has gone wrong.
5c) How do I do EOFY STP final payfile reporting with Payroll Guru?
For each EOFY you will need to submit a final STP payfile which tells the ATO that this is your final payfile for the financial year.
- This final payfile will have some manual figures plugged into it regarding FBT amounts and any of those figures that have not been accumulating over the FY.
- This payfile’s information will represent the final information in the employees mygov portal.
We will release specific instructions for EOY in April of 2020.
5d) I’m moving to Payroll Guru mid FY - what do I need to do?
STP submissions from 2 or more payroll systems are stored separately in a mygov portal and consolidated to come up with a total figure. It’s important that you close off STP reporting properly in your old payroll system - and start off with ZERO balances for all earnings.
If you are moving to Payroll Guru from another payroll system then you need to:
- Submit a final payfile from your old payroll system to finalise STP reporting from that platform.
- You need to start with ZERO balances for your first payrun in Payroll Guru.
At the EOFY you have to manually enter/key in any balances that are meant to be held over until the final payfile submission i.e. FBT amounts.