Add, Edit or Delete a Contribution Item (AU) – Astute Payroll Help Centre

Overview

If you're processing non-payable accruals that need to be shown on pay advices, such as ACIRT or Coinvest, and these don't need to be reported via STP, you can create contributions in Config > Payroll and assign these to the relevant employee or contractor.

Please note that the Contributions functionality needs to be enabled by our Support team before it will appear in your portal, so if this is something you are interested in, please contact us.

Amounts that are recorded in a pay against a contribution item are not included in the STP message that is generated, so before you set up a contribution item for any type of non-payable accrual, we recommend that you contact your accountant, financial advisor, or the ATO directly to ensure that you're aware of and compliant with your STP reporting obligations.

Add a Contribution Item

To add a contribution item:

Go to Config > Payroll > Contributions.
Select the Region, if prompted > Create new Contribution.
Configure the settings for the contribution item
Click Save.

The table below outlines the configuration options you will see when you are creating a contribution item.

Name	The name of the contribution item as it will appear when you're assigning it in the portal
Payslip Name	An optional field to set how the contribution should appear on employee pay advices
Calculation Type	Set as Fixed Value or Percentage: Percentage (%) will calculate a specified percentage when the contribution is added to an employee pay. You can select which pay items are included in the percentage calculation using the ‘applies to’ checkbox. By default, this will be set to 'All Pay Items'. To select specific items only, deselect the 'All Pay Items' checkbox and then individually choose the required items. Fixed Value will deduct a specified dollar value when the contribution is added to an employee pay Tick the ‘Enabled’ checkbox to make the contribution item available for users to select. Both Calculation Types require a Start Date, but the Finish Date field is optional. Important: The Percentage or Fixed Amount that you enter in Config when you create a contribution item is the default value, which will automatically flow through when the item is assigned to any employee. You can edit the Percentage or Fixed Amount on the employee profile if they should be set with a custom value, but if a custom value is set for an employee, any changes made to the default value will not flow through.
Do not pay on wages	An option to set a wage amount that the total of the pay will need to pass before the contribution will apply. For Percentage based contribution items, you can set a minimum and maximum limit. For Fixed value contributions, you can only set a minimum amount.
Date range applies to	Selecting Pay Period will include the contribution in the pay period that includes the Start Date that has been set. Selecting Pay Date will include the contribution in the first pay run with a pay date that falls after the Start Date that has been set.
GL Export Details	Set the Expense and Liability account codes for the contribution item.
Payment Summary Settings	The Payment Section dropdown is a legacy setting which was used when employee financial data was reported on an end of year payment summary. You'll still need to complete this field, as it is mandatory, however the selection you make will not be reported as part of STP. You'll also be able to indicate whether the item will display in the Notes or Deduction section of an employee pay advice.
Payroll Tax Settings	Ticking this checkbox excludes the contribution from Payroll Tax.

Assign a Contribution to an Employee

Once a contribution item has been created, and the criteria for the date range that it applies to has been met, you can assign the contribution to the employee's profile in Users > Employees > select employee > Pay Items > Contributions.

As mentioned above, if you need to set a custom value that differs from the default value that automatically flows through from Config > Payroll, you can set this here. Future changes to the default value will not apply to employees with custom values set, so you will need to manage any changes to their contribution rate manually.

Pays with Contribution Items

If an employee has been assigned a contribution item, this will appear in every pay that is generated for the employee that falls between the Start Date and the Finish Date. A contribution cannot be set up to skip pay periods.

If the employee is not entitled to accrue the contribution amount every pay period, you will need to manually remove the contribution item from their pay in Payroll > Process Payroll > Process Payroll by expanding the view of their pay and clicking the 'X' to the left of the contribution item to remove the record.

Alternatively, if the contribution recurs at the same frequency (eg monthly but the employee is on a weekly Pay Cycle) you may like to recalculate the contribution value set on the employee's profile so that you won't need to remove it from Process Payroll. In this case, you can:

Set the contribution item in Config > Payroll > Contributions with a value of $0.00
Set a custom value on the employee's profile that is the total contribution they should accrue per period.

For example, if an employee would generally only accrue the contribution monthly, but they're paid on a weekly frequency, you'd need to take the monthly contribution amount and recalculate this as a weekly value, which you would then set as the custom value in their Pay Items tab.

Edit a Contribution Item

To edit a contribution item:

Go to Config > Payroll > Contributions.
Click the name of the contribution item to open the settings page.
Update any fields you require and click Save.

Once a contribution item has been used in payroll, the Calculation Type and Payment Section fields will lock and cannot be edited.

Delete a Contribution Item

To delete a contribution item:

Go to Config > Payroll > Contributions.
Tick the checkbox to the left of a contribution name.
Click With selected contributions… > Delete.

A contribution item can only be deleted if it hasn’t been linked to an employee profile or used in payroll.