EOFY Frequently Asked Questions - FY 2022/23

Overview

This article contains information relating to some common questions that arise around end of financial year. 

• Why don't my totals match when I'm reconciling?
• Which financial year are wages reported in?
• How do I update my employees' super to account for the SGC percentage increase?
• Why is there an H instead of an S in my STP Update report?
• The STP Report Settings for my Pay/Superannuation/Deduction Item are incorrect
• My STP submissions keep failing/My portal is not configured to communicate with the ATO
• How do I update the Payroll Tax rates in my portal? When will Payroll Tax thresholds be updated in portals?

Why don’t my totals match when I'm reconciling?

Before you reconcile your payroll activity against your STP Update event, you will need to regenerate your STP Update. This ensures that the information in the STP is the most current.

1. Go to Payroll > Process Payroll > STP Update.
2. Click Report Settings > choose the relevant financial year > select any other filters > Go.
3. Select everyone.
4. Click With selected... > Regenerate > Go.

If you make any changes to an employee’s payroll data once you’ve generated (or regenerated) your STP Update event, you will need to regenerate each time to pull through the updated information

Which financial year are wages reported in?

Wages are allocated to a financial year based on the Payment Date of a pay run. If you need to report wages in FY 2021/22, you’ll need to make sure that the pay run has a payment date on or before 30 June 2022. To report wages in the new financial year, you’ll need a payment date of 1 July 2022 or later.

How do I update my employees’ super to account for the SGC percentage increase?

You can update your existing superannuation item with a new rate, and this rate will automatically be applied to employees who have been assigned the item, as long as their profile is using the default values.

This means that you can accommodate the increase to 11% SGC effective 1 July 2023, by adding a new rate to your existing 10.5% superannuation item. You do not need to create a separate item to accommodate the increase. 

1. Go to Config > Payroll > Superannuation and click on the item you need to update.
2. Click Add Rate.
3. Set a Finish Date for the previous rate (eg to cease the old rate at the end of the financial year, enter 30.6.2023) and click the Save disk icon to save these details.
4. Enter the Start Date for the new rate. For example, to apply the rate from the start of the new financial year, enter 1.7.2023. 
5. Enter the new rate (eg 11.0000%).
6. Click the Save icon to the right of the rate details. 

IMPORTANT: This process will only update the superannuation rate for employees who have had their superannuation item configured with the system's default values. If you have added any custom values to the Users > Employees > select employee > Pay Items tab for any employees, you will need to check for and update these manually.  

You may also need to consider whether your pay, oncost and charge rates need to change to allow for the SGC increase.

Why is there an H instead of an S in the STP Update report?

The Type that appears in the STP Update report for employees indicates the tax type they were paid under: S refers to salary and wages for a standard tax employee, and H refers to income earned while recorded as a Working Holiday Maker.

If an employee has been incorrectly set up as a Working Holiday Maker, and you need to move earnings from a Type H to a Type S Income Statement (or vice versa), you'll need to process two lump sum pays.

• The first pay reverses the amounts paid under the incorrect type, H. You will need to ensure that the employee’s tax tables are set to Working Holiday Maker before you create this pay run.
• The second pay reprocesses the reversed amounts under the correct type, S. Before you create this pay run, you must update the employee’s tax table to the relevant resident tax table (eg Tax Free Threshold).

You can refer to the Pay Item Balance report for the employee to confirm the Pay Items and Tax amounts that have already been processed for them. Please use the exact pay items that were originally processed to ensure that the amounts are reversed correctly and you do not have any issues with negative values in your STP submission.

Important: With STP 2.0, the individual disaggregated categories can be negative figures, but the overall total of the STP Update for all categories combined must be $0.00 or greater (ie not a negative value).

If you require a sandbox to test your lump sum pays prior to processing in your live portal, please contact our Support Team.

The STP Report Settings for my Pay/Superannuation/Deduction Item are Incorrect

With STP 2.0, the STP Report Settings that you set for your pay, superannuation, and deduction items is used to categorise the payroll data that you submit to the ATO. 

If you have submitted via STP throughout the year and find during your end of financial year processes that any of your items have been assigned the incorrect STP Report Settings, you will need to process adjustment pays to correct your pay data, to reverse the incorrectly processed pay data and then reprocess it using an item that has been defined with the correct settings. 

My STP submissions keep failing/My portal is not configured to communicate with the ATO

If you’re receiving an error message in the STP Submission or STP Update report, or your STP messages are not submitting successfully to the ATO, you’ll need to confirm that your myGovID Machine (M2M) credential is still valid.

An M2M credential has a 2-year lifespan and is required by the ATO to allow STP and TFN data to be submitted from your entity. You can confirm the status of your M2M credential in Config > Company Management > select entity > Payroll > myGovId Machine Credential Settings.

If a credential has expired, you’ll need to create a new one for your entity by logging into your RAM portal with the ATO. Once this is done, you can upload the new credential into your portal. Only nominated users can create a new credential and it’s important to note where your keystore file saves on your computer so that you can easily find it when it’s time to upload it.

IMPORTANT: As the M2M credential is created outside of Astute Payroll, we aren’t able to support the creation of a new credential. If you have any questions relating to this process, you will need to contact the ATO directly.

How do I update the Payroll Tax Rates in my portal? When will Payroll Tax rates be updated in portals?

Following our recent release of the updated Payroll Tax Report 2023, payroll tax rates are now managed internally for all portals. 

If changes are announced to thresholds for a relevant state or territory, you will need to add the new rate in Config > Payroll > Payroll Tax ensuring that the Effective Date you set is the date that the new rate should apply. 

If no changes need to be made to the Payroll Tax rate for the new financial year, you won’t need to create a new rate for the new financial year. The Financial Year and Effective Date will automatically be updated to reflect the new financial year, and the current Tax Rate that you have set for each state and territory will continue to apply. 

Please note that Astute Payroll will not update Payroll Tax Rates on behalf of portals.