A new validation rule has been implemented by the ATO which results in the rejection of
Single Touch Payroll (STP) submissions that use certain non-alphanumeric characters in the description of Other Allowances.
The ATO will no longer accept the following characters: + < > | \ ` ~ # ^ _ { } in the Other Allowances description field as these symbols have caused issues in the ATO backend systems.
In the event that an STP submission is rejected by this new rule (you may receive an email advising an ATO Partial Success Notification), the description of any Allowance with a Category of ‘Other’ with any of the abovementioned symbols will need to be edited in Lookups > Payroll > Allowances. You will also need to upgrade to Sybiz Visipay 18.11.
Sybiz Visipay 18.11 includes additional warnings to let users know of this rule when editing allowances. Once edited, the descriptions will be used in future STP submissions which will also update employee’s year to date submission data.
As always, we recommend customers speak with their Authorised Business Partner before applying any software updates.