Understanding STP Phase 2
Single Touch Payroll (STP) Phase 2 expands how the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) collects and administers information from employers on behalf of other government agencies, such as Services Australia. This has two major benefits:
- It simplifies reporting obligations for employers. For example, it reduces the need to send an Employment Separation Certificate to Centrelink.
- Government agencies that use STP data will respond more quickly in their services.
Although the structure and content of STP Phase 2 is very different from STP Phase 1, there is no change to your business's workflow. You're still required to action pay events and update/finalisation events, which you can do in the same way as always.
For more information about employer reporting guidelines, visit the ATO website.
When do I start reporting with STP Phase 2?
STP Phase 2 starts on 1 January 2022. To ensure our clients have sufficient time to transition to STP Phase 2, the ATO has granted MYOB clients using MYOB Advanced Payroll a deferral until the start of the payroll reporting year 2022. All clients will upgrade to the STP Phase 2 version between February and June 2022. The upgrade will not automatically switch to STP Phase 2 – you will remain on the current version of STP until you complete the transition
If your organisation has a withholding payer number (WPN), you are exempt from STP reporting for the 2018–19, 2019–20, 2020–21 and 2021–22 financial years. You will need to start reporting these payments through STP from 1 August 2022.
Advanced is adding support for WPNs in an upcoming version.
MYOB Advanced users can choose when to enable STP Phase 2 reporting. In MYOB Advanced version 2021.1.403, STP Phase 2 is turned off by default and you can still use existing STP Phase 1 workflows.
The best time to enable STP Phase 2 is when:
- No pay runs are being processed.
- You have enough time to review and update your employees and pay items.
What's MYOB doing?
We're making changes to MYOB Advanced to make sure you can stay compliant. For more specific information on the changes we're making, see Changes in MYOB Advanced for STP Phase 2
What's NOT changing?
The following parts of STP reporting won't change:
- The way you submit your pay events automatically through completing pays.
- Due dates for pay events are still on or before payday unless you are eligible for a reporting concession.
- Taxation and superannuation obligations.
- End of year finalisation requirements.
What do I need to do?
When you're ready to enable STP Phase 2, you need to review, update and validate your data. To help you complete these tasks, MYOB Advanced version 2021.1.4 adds a new STP Phase 2 tab to the Payroll Preferences screen (MPPP1100). This new tab lists the tasks that need to be completed to prepare for STP Phase 2.