STP - 1 to 19 employees

For those employers who have yet to start reporting via Single Touch Payroll, your time has come.

Luckily we have some time, the ATO recognises that not everyone can be ready by 1st July and so there is a general exemption in place until 30th September 2019. We must start before that date, else you will need to apply for an exemption from the ATO.

How often do I need to do this?

The legislation requires you to report ‘on or before payday’. Effectively this means the day you send the EFT file to the bank.

If you have fallen into the habit of paying everyone, and the doing the payroll later, then you may need to make some changes.

Closely Held Employees

Also there is exemption in place for ‘Closely Held Employees' until 1st July 2020. Closely held normally means you only employ yourself, family or shareholders. Contact your accountant if you think you may wish to take advantage of this exemption. Note that if you employee a single person outside of this definition then you must report by STP.

Next Steps

Contact your Minder support person to get the ball rolling. There is a small amount of background set up required to get you company registered with our SSP and we also need to schedule the training.

This is free right?

Sorry, no. The security requirements imposed by the ATO requires us (and most other payroll software providers) to use a 3rd party SSP, or Sending Service Provider to enable the STP transaction. The 3rd party providers (Superchoice is our provider) charge a service fee which we must pass on. Hence a small charge will be added to your Minder maintenance invoice each quarter to cover this. Other software company’s either do the same or had adjusted their support fee’s accordingly.

I don’t use Minder Payroll, so this stuff won’t apply to me right?

Yes and No. If you employ people then you must report your payroll via STP. There are options available but you must start. Talk to your accountant.

More information:-

https://xtrasoft.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/XBD/pages/7045146

https://xtrasoft.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/XBD/blog/2019/03/15/72712251

https://xtrasoft.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/XBD/blog/2019/01/23/67534878

ATO - Single Touch for Small Employers Fact Sheet