Single touch payroll

Single Touch Payroll (STP) is an ATO requirement for reporting payroll data, which allows you to report to the ATO directly from your payroll software at the same time as you pay your employees. You do not need to provide payment summaries to your employees for the payments you report through STP—instead, they can view their payment information online using their myGov account.
STP is required from 1 July 2018 for employers with 20 or more employees, and from 1 July 2019 for all employers.
MYOB Advanced supports STP reporting, once the system has been set up to use it.
See the Single Touch Payroll section on the ATO website for more information.

Setting up single touch payroll

To set up and activate payroll reporting via Single Touch Payroll:

1. Enable the STP feature on the Enable/Disable Features screen (CS100000).

2. Register for Standard Business Reporting (SBR), if you have not done so already.

3. Ensure that any users who will be sending STP data to the ATO have my.MYOB login accounts associated with the MYOB Advanced logins. (This is already the case for users who have signed up for Secure Authentication.)

4. Check your data to ensure that there is no missing information that would cause STP data to be rejected by the ATO.

5. Activate STP reporting on the Single Touch Payroll tab of the Payroll Preferences screen (MPPP1100).

6. Re-check your data to ensure that all pay items have the correct ATO reporting categories for STP.

Enabling the STP feature

To enable Single Touch Payroll functions, tick the STP feature under Advanced Payroll on the Enable/Disable Features screen (CS100000). This enables the various forms and fields used to set up and manage the STP functionality. 

Registering for SBR

 MYOB Advanced uses the Standard Business Reporting (SBR) mechanism for sending data to the ATO.

If your company is branched for PAYG purposes, you must set this up with the ATO and receive a branch number for each branch. To ensure correct STP reporting, you must create a separate company record for each unique ABN+ABN Branch Number combination.

If you have already registered for SBR on the SBR Registration tab of the Payroll Preferences screen (MPPP1100), you can skip this step; otherwise perform the configuration steps below.

To register for SBR, you must generate a software ID for each company in the system, then register the IDs with the ATO, which authorises MYOB to send information to the ATO on your behalf.

Companies that are already registered for SBR will have a value in the Last Requested Date column in the table at the bottom of this form.

Generate IDs by clicking each of the Request Software ID links in the table at the bottom of the SBR Registration tab—note each ID down as it is generated.

When you click Request Software ID, you may be asked to log in with your my.MYOB credentials—when you have done that, a popup for the software ID will appear. (After you have logged in once, you won’t have to do it again for subsequent software ID requests.)

Once you have IDs, you can register them in one of two ways:

• Call the ATO on 1300 85 22 32 and work through the process with the ATO representative.

• Use the ATO's Access Manager website (https://am.ato.gov.au/) to update and assign the information to your business. This requires an AUSkey login, and the person registering the software ID must have administrative rights for the business’s AUSkey account.

Setting up my.MYOB logins

Ensure that any users who will be sending STP data to the ATO can log in to MYOB Advanced using a my.MYOB login. A my.MYOB login is created and associated with an Advanced login when a user signs up for Secure Authentication. Secure Authentication was introduced in the 2018.1.2 release, and is required for all logins after 1 December 2018.

Activating the MYOB external identity provider

As of the 2018.1.2 release, my.MYOB logins are enabled by default. In previous releases, the MYOB provider had to be made active on the Security Preferences screen (SM201060). This provider is now active by default and the table of Allowed External Identity Providers is now read-only.

Associating advanced users with my.MYOB logins

As of the 2018.1.2 release, users are able to sign up for Secure Authentication, which associates a my.MYOB account with their MYOB Advanced login as part of the signup process. In previous releases, my.MYOB logins had to be set up manually—the introduction of Secure Authentication means that all users (not just users who will be submitting STP data) can set up logins automatically.
To check that a user has a my.MYOB login associated with their Advanced login, check the External Identities tab of the User Profile form—if there is a value in the User Key column for the MYOB provider, they are associated with a my.MYOB login.

Once a user has signed up for Secure Authentication, they can login by clicking the Sign in with Secure Authentication button on the MYOB Advanced login screen:

Checking your data

Before starting to use STP, check your data to ensure that there is no missing information that would cause STP data to be rejected by the ATO.

We recommend that you run the validation checks before activating STP reporting, in case there are a large number of records that need to be corrected. However, you should run the checks again after activating STP, to ensure that the ATO reporting categories assigned to your pays items are correct.

You can run validation checks on your data from the Check Data screen (MPPP5020)—doing so will highlight any errors that would prevent an STP batch from being sent to the ATO. (These validation checks are also run automatically when a pay is processed, but in that case only the records involved in the pay are checked.)
Click the Run validation toolbar button, and details of all data validation errors appear in the main table. If there are no errors, the table will remain empty.

The system checks employee records, payer records (i.e. branches) and pay items. Click on the ID column to open the record in the appropriate editing window, so you can make the necessary corrections.

Employees

The following details on the Employees screen (EP203000) must exist and contain valid information:

• Last Name

• Date of Birth

• Address Line 1

• City

• Post Code (only if the Country is AU - AUSTRALIA)

• State (only if the Country is AU - AUSTRALIA)

• Payment Summary Type - this is set on the Employment tab of the Pay Details screen (MPPP2310).

If you need to change or set the Payment Summary Type for the employee, tick the Update open pay(s) and Update completed pay(s) boxes on the Pay Details form before saving—this ensures that all of the employee’s current and historical pays will include the Payment Summary Type, which means that they will be included in STP reporting.

Pay items

Check allowances’ categories on the Pay Item Liabilities screen (MPPP1025). In particular, make sure user no allowance pay items are using the “Allowances” category, as this category only applies to Payment Summaries, not STP. Available STP categories are:

• Allowance Car

• Allowance Laundry

• Allowance Meals

• Allowance Other

• Allowance Transport

• Allowance Travel

The following validation rules are also applied to other pay items:

• Taxable Income pay items must have a reporting category.

• Employer Super pay items with the category SG Superannuation Guarantee Contributions or AP Award/Productivity Contributions must have an ATO reporting category.

• Employee Super pay items with the category SS Salary Sacrifice must have an ATO reporting category.

Timing of Pay Item Changes
It is important to note that until STP reporting is activated (see Activating single touch payroll), the system assumes that you are still producing Payment Summaries, and will expect all pay items to have reporting categories that relate to Payment Summaries. This means that if you update your pay items to use STP-related reporting categories before activating STP reporting, errors will appear on the Pay Item Liabilities form. These errors can be ignored—once you activate STP reporting, the system will expect pay items to have reporting categories relating to STP and the errors will disappear.

The default ETP pay items (see page Error! Bookmark not defined.) are created with STP-related reporting categories, so errors will always appear for them until STP is activated.

To be sure that your pay items all have the correct reporting categories, we recommend that you run the validation checks before activating STP, and again after.

Activiating single touch payroll

Enabling the STP feature (see Enabling the STP feature) adds a Single Touch Payroll tab to the Payroll Preferences screen (MPPP1100): 

Read the Terms of Use linked to on this tab, then tick the Enable Single Touch Payroll reporting check box:
Once STP reporting has been enabled, an STP Enabled Date field appears on this tab, displaying the date and time STP was enabled.

Once you have enabled STP reporting, the ATO requires that you continue using it from then on. The Enable Single Touch Payroll reporting check box cannot be unticked once you have submitted your first STP batch.

 You are now ready to report pay data to the ATO via Single Touch Payroll.

Submitting data via STP

Once Single Touch Payroll is enabled, payroll data is reported to the ATO automatically each time a pay is run.

Because STP data includes year-to-date totals for employees, you do not need to go back and send STP data for historical pays—once you have run a pay and generated STP data for all employees, your reporting will be up to date.

 When a pay run is processed, the STP validation checks are run on all records included in that pay run (see Checking your data). Any errors must be corrected before the pay can be completed.

When a pay run is completed, a Single Touch Payroll batch is created and automatically submitted to the ATO. Before the batch is submitted, you must accept a declaration that the data is correct and that you are authorised to submit it (this is an ATO requirement).

Tick I agree and click OK to submit the STP data. 

Managing STP submissions

Once a Single Touch Payroll submission has been made, you can view and manage it on the Manage Submission screen (MPPP5019). You can access this form in several ways:

• The STP batch’s ID code is displayed on the header of the Pay Run Details screen (MPPP3120). Click the ID code to open the Manage Submissions form and display the STP batch for the pay run.

• The STP Batch column on the Manage Pays screen (MPPP4110) displays the ID code of the STP batch for each pay. Click one of the ID codes to open the Manage Submission form and display the STP batch for the relevant pay run.

• Open the Manage Submissions form directly from the navigation pane, then select the batch to show from the Batch number field.

The Manage Pays form will display an alert if any pays include a failed STP submission, or if any historical, future-dated pays are missing an STP batch (see "What do I do if a submission fails?" in Troubleshooting).

Submission status

The status of the batch’s lodgement with the ATO is on the header of the Pay Run Details form and in the STP Batch Status column of the Manage Pays form. The Manage Submissions form gives more detailed information about the batch’s status.
Possible statuses are:

To update the status once the batch has been sent, click Check Submission Status on the Manage Submissions form.

Response times from the ATO can vary according to the size of the payroll and the status of the ATO’s services. It can take between a few minutes and a few hours to receive a response, depending on these factors.

A Check submission status automation schedule is available to automatically update the status of all STP batches, which is set to run each night. You can check that this schedule is active on the Automation Schedules screen (SM205020).

After any database change (e.g. upgrade or database restore), restart the schedule from the Automation Schedules Statuses screen (SM205030)—select the Check submission status schedule and click Initialize Scheduler. 

On the Manage Submissions form, a batch’s status is broken down into three levels:

• The status of the batch as a whole is displayed in the form header.

• The status of each company included in the batch is displayed on the Payer Details tab.

• The status of each employee included in the batch is displayed on the Payment Details tab.

Any Submission not successful errors in one level will affect the level above, i.e. if one employee in the batch has the status Submission not successful on the Payment Details tab, then that employee’s company will also have the status Submission not successful on the Payer Details tab, which will result in the batch having the Submission not successful status on the header.
If the batch includes any errors, an extra Errors tab is available on the Manage Submissions form. This tab contains full details of each error, allowing you to identify and correct the problems. See “What do I do if a submission fails?” in Troubleshooting for more details on dealing with rejected submissions.

STP batch details

The Manage Submissions form displays all information included in the STP submission. This information is split into several sections.

The details on the Payer Details tab are the totals for the originating pay run only. The details on the other tabs are year-to-date totals for the entire financial year.

Form header

The header area of the form displays information about the submission.

Payer details tab

The Payer Details tab displays lodgement statuses and totals for each company included in the originating pay run.

If an employee has been paid from another company in the past, the amounts for that branch will not be included in their totals for this STP batch. This is not a problem—once STP data is finalised at the end of the financial year (see Finalising STP data), all amounts will be included.

If the batch could not be sent to the ATO, a Re-send to ATO button is available on the toolbar for this tab.

Payment details tab

The Payment Details tab displays statuses and year-to-date income information for each employee included in the batch.

Allowances and deductions tab

This tab displays year-to-date totals for the deductions and/or allowances for each employee in the batch.

Employee details tab

This tab displays taxation and contact details for each employee included in the STP batch.

Employee terminations and STP

The Single Touch Payroll submission for the pay that included an employee’s termination will report a finalisation declaration for the employee. The ETP pay items will be included in the Termination tab of the Single Touch Payroll batch for the pay run; all other pay items will be included in the tab corresponding to the employee’s recorded Payment Summary type. ETPs are listed individually in the batch tab, and consolidated by date of payment and ETP code in the submission.
Recent enhancements to the termination process include the automatic use of system-provided pay items for most ETP payments. See to the “Terminations in Payroll” white paper for guidance, including the use of custom ETP pay items where necessary.

Historical terminations

As the ETP pay item types were not available before the introduction of STP features, if an employee was terminated before STP was enabled, their ETP may have been processed by adding custom pay items with a custom tax rate/amount.
In these cases, you will need to use the Update Historic Terminations screen (MPPP5021) to enter ETP information for the custom pay items, which will add their termination payment amounts to the STP data.

To add termination payment amounts to the STP data:

1. Use the Employee ID and Pay Run ID fields to select the terminated employee and the pay run that contained their final pay.

2. If a termination date was entered on the Termination form, it will be displayed in the Current Pay Termination Date field; otherwise you must enter the termination date manually.

3. All income and allowance pay items for the employee are displayed in the main table. For each pay item:

   1. Select the ETP code that applies to the item.

   2. Select the ETP tax treatment (taxable or non-taxable) that applies to the item.

   3. For taxable items, enter the amount of tax withheld.

4. Click Save.

See the ATO website for detail on ETP codes.

Termination payment amounts for the employees will be submitted when a finalisation declaration is sent (see page 21), or when a manual update of STP data is sent (see page 22).

Fringe benefits and STP

When reporting via STP, reportable fringe benefits are set up as normal, i.e. pay items for reportable fringe benefits must configured on the Pay Items screen (MPPP2210) as follows:

• The pay item’s Type should be set to “FRINGE BENEFIT REPORTING”.

• The pay item’s Taxation field must be set to “Tax-free (Paid after tax)”.

• Set the Apply grossed-up multiplier and Fringe Benefits are exempt from Fringe Benefits Tax options on the Additional Info tab as appropriate. (You may need to set up multiple pay items for each fringe benefit to cater for the different combinations of these two options, e.g. you may need to set up exempt and non-exempt items for one fringe benefit, or grossed-up vs not grossed-up items for another.)

• The item’s ATO Category on the Pay Item Liabilities screen (MP.PP.10.25) must be set to “Reportable fringe benefits amount”.

Once they are set up, add fringe benefit pay items to employees Standard and Current Pays in the same way as any other pay item.

See Managing Employee Pays > Pay Items > Fringe Benefits in the Payroll section of the MYOB Advanced User Guide for more information on setting up and processing reportable fringe benefits.

Finalising STP data

At the end of each financial year, you must send a finalisation declaration for each employee. This updates STP data for all active and inactive employees (including terminated employees), and indicates that you have provided all of their information for the financial year through STP reporting. From this data, the ATO will pre-fill each employees taxation information in their myGov account.

When an employee is terminated, a finalisation declaration is automatically included in the STP batch for the pay run that they were terminated in.

Send finalisation declarations on the Finalise screen (MPPP5023):

Use the controls at the top of the form to filter the list of employees, tick the boxes for all employees you want to send a finalisation declaration for, then click Submit Finalisation Event to send declarations for the selected employee(s).
Any employees whose STP data has been finalised will have a tick in the Finalised column on this form.

Updating employee STP data

Normally, employees’ Single Touch Payroll data is updated during the pay run, when STP data for a pay is sent to the ATO. In certain rare cases, it may be necessary to update employees’ STP data outside of a pay run.
Send STP updates on the Update screen (MPPP5022):

Use the controls at the top of the form to filter the list of employees, tick the boxes for all employees you want to send an update for, then click Submit Update Event to send updates for the selected employee(s).
This updates the STP data for all active employees; no payer information is sent.

Troubleshooting

What data is included in STP submissions?

Each STP submission includes:

• Contact information for the payer (employer)

• Contact and personal details for each employee included in the originating pay run

• Year-to-date pay information for each employee included in the originating pay run, including allowances, deductions, superannuation and FBT

All information included in a batch can be viewed on the Manage Submission screen (MPPP5019)—see Managing STP submissions.

Do I still have to send payment summaries?

As the Single Touch Payroll data provides all year-to-date values, the STP process replaces the old Payment Summary process. Employees can view their payment information online using their myGov account.

If any employees do not have a myGov account (this may be the case for working holidaymakers or seasonal workers), they can contact the ATO for a printed copy of their payment information.

Once you have successfully submitted STP data, you do not need to generate Payment Summaries for employees or submit the usual PSAR to the ATO. If you started STP submissions before 1 July 2018, you do not need to generate Payment Summaries or the PSAR for the 2017/18 financial year. 

What do I do if a submission fails?

When an STP submission returns an error, you will need to examine the error response and make the appropriate corrections. The method for addressing the error depends on the error status returned:

• If a batch has the “Not created” status, this could mean that the internal process that creates the STP batch has failed, or that the originating pay run was completed before STP was enabled, but is future-dated to a date after STP was enabled. Open the pay run from the Manage Pays screen (MPPP4110) and click the Create STP Batch button to create a batch manually.

• If a batch has the “Submission failed” status, this means that the batch could not be sent to MYOB’s online services, which forward the data to the ATO. You will need to re-send the batch manually by clicking the Re-send to ATO button on the Payer Details tab of the Manage Submission screen (MPPP5019).

• If a batch has the “Submission not successful” status, this means that the batch was successfully submitted to the ATO, but the ATO rejected some or all of the batch. You will need to open the batch on the Manage Submission screen (MPPP5019) and review the Errors tab to see exactly which records in the batch were rejected. You can then click on the ID of each record to open it in a new window and correct the problems that resulted in the error. Generally, it is not necessary to re-submit the batch—the issues will simply be corrected in the STP batch for the next pay run.

Records are rejected on an individual basis, i.e. only those employee records that have the “Submission not successful” status have been rejected by the ATO; all others have already been accepted.

How does STP affect pay run reversals?

If a pay run is reversed, the reversal will not be included in STP reports; however, the STP batch for the replacement or subsequent pay run will report the correct YTD totals.

What do I do if a my.MYOB login fails?

If you are unable to log in with the my.MYOB/Secure Authentication login associated with an MYOB Advanced user, try removing the association on the User Profile screen (SM203010), then re-associating the user with their my.MYOB login after STP reporting has been activated.

How do I correct incorrect reporting categories?

Allowance amounts in STP must be assigned the correct STP category—this category comes from the allowance’s pay item.
If a pay item has been assigned the wrong category, update it on the Pay Item Liabilities screen (MPPP1025) and click Update Pay History. The next time STP data is sent, the amounts in each category will be corrected.
However, if the wrong pay item was processed in an employee’s pay, you’ll need to use the Adjust Pays button on the Pay Run Details screen (MPPP3120) to correct it. See Adjusting Employees' Pays for more information.