This end of Financial Year is set to be a big one for Australian businesses - and
Single Touch Payroll will pay a significant role in how you manage and report information.
And with 30 June fast approaching, now is the time to prepare yourself - and your employees - for the impact of a complicated end of financial year.
Do your employees know about payment summaries?
If this is your first year reporting Single Touch Payroll your employees may not be prepared for the changes that STP has brought to tax time. In particular, employees may still be expecting to receive payment summaries from their employer before they lodge their tax return.
Payment Summaries (a.k.a. group certificates) are now no longer necessary and instead replaced with online Income Statements. Employees will need to have a MyGov account in order to view their Income Statements and lodge their tax return online.
Being unprepared may lead to delays in receiving their tax reimbursement and employees will no doubt look to their employers for answers.
Sybiz prepared a helpful
Employee Information Poster last year to help employees understand the changes that were coming to their tax time. You can also direct users to the
MySTP page to help them understand how to get set up with MyGov.
At the time we encouraged our customers to post it in a communal space - such as a work fridge or bulletin board - but so much has changed since then! If your workforce is now remote we encourage you to email these resources to staff and share them in Microsoft Teams, Slack or whichever equivalent software you are using to keep in touch.
STP at the core of JobKeeper reporting
JobKeeper reimbursements will be calculated based on information configured and sent with your Single Touch Payroll reports. It is critical that JobKeeper payments are set up and managed as instructed by the ATO to avoid reimbursement delays.
If you are not already set up with an integrated Single Touch Payroll solution,
Sybiz Visipay is designed to help you manage the finer details of your STP reporting and ensure a successful upload every pay run.
For more information about how Sybiz Visipay can help manage this important initiative, check out our JobKeeper page.
Preparing for STP phase 2
Single Touch Payroll phase 2 was slated to start rolling out from the beginning of the 2020/21 Financial Year, however the impact of COVID-19 and the JobKeeper scheme will likely delay this.
When STP phase 2 comes to fruition, it will require more information capture on the part of your payroll solution and some additional administrative work initially. However it is now also looking likely that the scope of data STP phase 2 was intending to capture will change before it is finally implemented for Australian businesses.
Sybiz will update our customers as more information about STP phase 2 comes to light.