This EOFY in Payroo will be slightly different than in previous years. Why? Because of the introduction of Single Touch Payroll (STP) Phase 2 reporting. Now that you’ve made the transition, you can prepare your payroll data for STP finalisation. But if you’re not sure where to start, don’t stress – we’ve outlined all the steps below to ensure a seamless year-end.
1. Check your employee's records
As part of STP Phase 2, there are key compliance requirements that affect the way employees are set up in Payroo. These requirements involve changes to details in the Employment and Taxes tabs.
In Payroo, all active and terminated employees (who will be included in the STP finalisation for the financial year) will need an employment basis, employment type, and tax scale defined in their records. Learn more about updating your employees for STP Phase 2 in Payroo Support.
Review your employees’ records to ensure they’re STP2 compliant. Keeping a close eye on things like date of birth, email address, and postcode under the employee profile.
2. Review pay items and their settings
You might remember that STP Phase 2 introduced a new set of ATO reporting categories for use in your earnings, deduction, and paid leave pay items within FY24, as well as any new pay items you create. Allowances will also need to be assigned an appropriate reporting type.
These categories tell the ATO how to treat each type of payment you’re reporting through STP Phase 2. So it’s important to double-check that earnings, deduction, paid leave and allowance pay items used in the current financial year are correctly assigned. For more details on reporting categories, check out our guide in Payroo Support.
3. Post and file any pay runs for the 2023/24 financial year
Any pay runs with a payment date in this financial year will need to be posted and filed before you finalise your employees. If these pay runs are to be reported in FY23, don’t forget that you’ll need to make sure the payment date is on or before 30 June 2023.
Be sure to check that all of your pay runs have been filed to the ATO successfully using STP.
4. Process any outstanding superannuation payments
To claim a deduction on superannuation accruals submitted via auto super for the current financial year, super batches should be approved no later than 2:00 pm AEST, 14 June 2024. Be sure to mark this date in your calendar so you don’t forget.
If you’re not registered for auto super, it’s not too late – read our support article on how to register for automatic superannuation payments. Alternatively, the payments will need to be made manually outside of Payroo.
5. Reconcile your payroll accounts
After processing all pay runs for the financial year, it’s important to forensically check the accuracy of your reporting. One way to do this easily is by generating the Payroll Summary report.
6. Don't forget to identify and amend any mistakes
Any errors made throughout the financial year can be corrected using an unscheduled pay run. Simply create the pay run for the required period and enter the adjustment amounts. You can even enter negative values if needed.
You will need to check that the payment date of the unscheduled pay run falls within the correct financial year (for example, on or before 30 June 2024) to ensure it’s reported correctly.
7. Process STP Finalisation
Last but not least, it’s time to process your STP finalisation. Our product team has been working to make this simpler, so if you’ve finalised STP in Payroo previously, you may notice some changes to the process this year-end.
Take a look at these steps on how to finalise your payroll information with the ATO.
You’ll need to file at least one pay run before you’re able to complete the STP finalisation process. Your first submission will include all year-to-date (YTD) payroll information that has been entered into Payroo.
A few tips to help you along the way:
The information included in the STP finalisation will pre-populate based on the information processed in Payroll.
If you need to report any leave paid out on termination as ‘Lump Sum A’ or ‘Lump Sum B,’ you can do this by processing an unscheduled pay run. For more information, read this article on how to adjust the lump sum value for unused leave.
Terminated employees can be finalised under STP Phase 1 if they have not yet been transitioned to Phase 2. All you have to do is process their STP finalisation separately to the rest of your active employees.
If you started using Payroo part way through the financial year and need to report employee opening balances through STP, take a look at our support article on transferring payroll balances to Payroo .
Any Employment Termination Payments (ETP) that have been processed will show on the STP finalisation screen.
You can export a copy of the information to be filed with the ATO by exporting an employee’s summary individually under reports.
That’s it – you’re all organised!
Looking ahead to FY25, pay runs with a payment date on or after 1 July 2024 will be processed in the next financial year, and any new tax rates will be applied automatically. The Super Guarantee (SG) rate is also increasing from 11 percent to 11.5 percent on 1 July 2024 for the 2024/25 financial year. Pay runs with a payment date of 1 July 2024 or later will have the new rate automatically applied to employees’ payslips.
If you have any questions or feedback, please email us at support@payroo.com.au.