If you commenced STP reporting before 30 June 2019, then you’ll need to use MYOB Advanced People to submit a Finalisation Event by 31 July 2019 instead of providing payment summaries to your employees and submitting a PSAR to the ATO.  From 2020 onwards, Finalisation Events will be due by 14 July.

Submitting a finalisation declaration (which MYOB calls a Finalisation Event) indicates to the ATO that you have provided all necessary information for the financial year through STP reporting. Once finalised, the status of that information in your employees' myGov accounts will change from being ‘Not tax ready’ to being Tax ready and it will be used to pre-fill their tax returns.  But although you have until 31 July 2019 to lodge your finalisation declaration using MYOB Advanced People, the sooner you lodge it, the sooner your staff will be able to lodge their tax returns and access the recently passed tax cut for the 2019 financial year… and the sooner they’ll stop asking you for their payment summaries! 

On the topic of payment summaries, remember that if you are submitting a Finalisation Event, then you don’t need to provide your employees with a PAYG payment summary as well.  Instead, let your employees know that their income statement will be available from the ATO online by giving them a copy of the ATO’s Single Touch Payroll employees factsheet.  Your employees will probably have also received an email about the STP changes directly from the ATO as well. Most of your employees will already have a myGov account set up to view their tax ready pay information.  However, if your employee doesn’t have a myGov account, you can refer them to the ATO’s helpful video on how to set up a myGov account.

It is important not to duplicate the employee information that you submit to the ATO, so if you started STP reporting before 30 June 2019, should submit a Finalisation Event instead of (and not in addition to) submitting a payment summary annual report (PSAR) file to the ATO. 

INCOME Tax cuts delivered. WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR YOU? 

The Federal Government's income tax cuts have been passed by the Senate.  The tax cuts will apply from 2019 income year, but the ATO has previously promised that if the tax cuts became law and a taxpayer has already received their personal income tax assessment, the ATO will automatically amend that assessment in response to the tax cuts. 

These types of tax changes highlight the benefits of using MYOB's cloud payroll software.  As a user of MYOB Advanced People, you don't need to worry about upgrading your payroll software to reflect the new tax tables. MYOB will handle it for you and notify you when the new release has been applied in MYOB Advanced People.

quick links to eofy payroll processes

If you commenced STP reporting last financial year, then you may be using some of the following MYOB Advanced People functionality for the first time, so we have included quick links to take you directly to the relevant how-to articles in our KnowledgeHub.  There are also some recently introduced features that you can use, such as payslip password protection submitting TFN declarations via STP.

• Submitting Update Events.  
  It's prudent to submit an Update Event before processing your year-end finalisation declaration, to ensure that all relevant pay information has been submitted to the ATO for your active employees before the Finalisation Event is processed. 
  Update Events are submitted from the STP Update screen.  Go to: People > Single Touch Payroll > STP Update. 
  
• Submitting Finalisation Events.
  After you have completed all your pay runs and payroll reconciliations for the previous financial year and successfully submitted an Update Event, you then you can proceed to submitting a Finalisation Event.  Note that when an employee is terminated during the prior year, a finalisation declaration is automatically included in the STP batch for the pay run that they were terminated in. 
  Finalisation Events are submitted using the STP Finalise form in Advanced People. Go to: People > Single Touch Payroll > STP Finalise. 
  
• Managing STP Submission Errors.
  
• Payslip Password Protection. 
  The introduction of STP reporting does not change your obligations to provide payslips to your employees, and most of our clients provide payslips by email. For added security, you can enable password protection on your employees payslips.  
  
• Submitting TFN Declarations via STP.
  Find out about how TFN declarations are now submitted as part of Single Touch Payroll batches. When a user selects Submit TFN Declaration from the TFN Declaration dropdown on the Taxation tab of the Pay Details screen (MPPP2310), the TFN Declaration Status changes to “Awaiting pay run”. 
  
• Amendments after Finalisation.
  Employers can amend finalised STP-reported information up for to five years after the EOFY by submitting an Update Event, but you should do so ASAP and within 14 days of the need for the amendment being identified. After the Update Event has been submitted, a Finalisation Event will then need to be processed to return the employee’s information in myGov to ‘Tax Ready’ status.  If you need to amend previously finalised employee information, then you should notify the affected employee as well, as the previously finalised amounts would have been available for them to complete their income tax return.  If they had already lodged their tax return, then ATO may issue an amended assessment to the affected employee.

Need help setting up STP?

If you didn’t start STP reporting before 30 June 2019, then please refer to the MYOB's EOFY Guide for Non-STP sites to complete your EOFY payroll processes in MYOB Advanced People. 

Please reach out to us if you need help accessing the KnowledgeHub in our Customer Portal or setting up STP reporting in MYOB Advanced People.