10th April, 2018
If you have a business that employs fewer than 20 people, you’re now required to begin using Single Touch Payroll, and getting it sorted soon will save complications later.
You may have read the stuff on STP reporting and breathed a sigh of relief that you don’t need to do anything this year, and that’s understandable.
STP: Get your headcount done on 1 April
MYOB forges ahead on STP trial
As a small business, you haven’t got time to muck around with a whole new reporting change, so anything you can put off is a bit of a God-send.
But the benefits of STP reporting for your business mean that a little bit of time spent now can help make you and your employees happy.
Here’s why you should consider going early on STP and start reporting on 1 July this year.
The key feature of STP reporting is that you’ll be sending the ATO payroll information each time you run a pay. You won’t need to change when you submit your pays through your payroll solution.
So, there’s no messing around at the end of each financial year with group certificates and hunting out this information for the ATO. It should be noted that MYOB software will still be able to produce a group certificate, if you want one — but you’re not required to create one.
Instead, all that information contained within your payroll solution will automatically reach the ATO. This equals fewer mistakes. Bliss.
STP payroll will cut out mistakes that employers make when paying the superannuation guarantee for employees.
The ATO will be able to match up your statements with your employees’ super provider. If there are any discrepancies between the two statements, they’ll alert you.
Most employers want to do the right thing by their employees. A lot of underpaid super happens as a simple mistake – not cloak-and-dagger tricks.
Because the ATO will be able to check what’s going on more regularly, their alerts about underpaid staff can reach you more quickly. This beats receiving a bill for two years of unpaid super. Ouch!
The benefits of STP for your employees will come if they have a MyGov account. Their choice though – they won’t be required to have one.
Through MyGov, whatever month of year, they’ll be able to see your information that the ATO has regarding their pay, including super. There’s no waiting for their group certificate after 30 June.
For your employees, that’s cool.
They’ll be able to see their paid superannuation, with super funds also reporting to the ATO as part of the STP scheme from 2019.
So if your team wonders if their super is going through A-OK, they can check for themselves instead of asking you to check.
This boosts your business in three ways:
