Single Touch Payroll

Single Touch Payroll (STP) is an ATO requirement for reporting payroll data, which allows you to report to the ATO directly from your payroll software at the same time as you pay your employees. STP is required from 1 July 2018 for employers with 20 or more employees, and from 1 July 2019 for employers with 19 or fewer employees. MYOB Advanced Payroll supports STP reporting, once the system has been set up to use it.

Setting up Single Touch Payroll

To set up and activate payroll reporting via Single Touch Payroll:

  1. Enable the "STP" feature on the Enable/Disable Features (CS.10.00.00) form.
  2. Register for SBR on the SBR Registration tab of the Payroll Preferences (MP.PP.11.00) form, if you have not done so already.
  3. Enable my.MYOB logins and ensure that any users who will be sending STP data to the ATO can log in to MYOB Advanced using a my.MYOB login. You may need to contact MYOB Support to set up my.MYOB logins for any users who do not already have one.
  4. Check your data to ensure that there is no missing information that would cause STP data to be rejected by the ATO:
    1. The following details on the Branches (CS.10.20.00) form must exist and contain valid information:
      • CDFId
      • ABN
      • Company ID
      • Company Name
      • Phone 1
      • Address Line 1
      • City
      • Post Code (only if the Jurisdiction Country is AU - AUSTRALIA)
      • State (only if the Jurisdiction Country is AU - AUSTRALIA)
    2. Ensure that all employees have the following details specified:
      • Last Name
      • Date of Birth
      • Address Line 1
      • City
      • Post Code (only if the Country is AU - AUSTRALIA)
      • State (only if the Country is AU - AUSTRALIA)
      • Payment Summary Type - this is set on the Employment tab of the Pay Details (MP.PP.23.10) form.
    3. Ensure that allowances' categories on the Pay Item Liabilities (MP.PP.10.25) form are correct. In particular, make sure user no allowance pay items are using the "Allowances" category, as this category only applies to Payment Summaries, not STP. Available STP categories are:
      • Allowance Car
      • Allowance Laundry
      • Allowance Meals
      • Allowance Other
      • Allowance Transport
      • Allowance Travel

    You can run validation checks on your data from the Check Company Data (MP.PP.50.20) form - doing so will highlight any errors that would prevent an STP batch from being sent to the ATO. (These validation checks are also run when a batch is submitted.)

  5. On the STP tab of thePayroll Preferences (MP.PP.11.00) form:
    1. Activate STP by selecting the Enable STP checkbox.
    2. If you want to be able to preview STP finalisations at the end of a financial year, select the Preview STP Finalisations before submission checkbox.
You are now ready to report pay data to the ATO via Single Touch Payroll.
Note: Once you have enabled STP reporting, the ATO requires that you continue using it from then on.

Sending Data to the ATO

Once Single Touch Payroll is enabled, payroll data is reported to the ATO automatically each time a pay is run.

Note: Because STP data includes year-to-date totals for employees, you do not need to go back and send STP data for historical pays—once you have run a pay and generated STP data for all employees, your reporting will be up to date. When a pay run is processed, the STP validation checks are run on all records included in that pay run. Any errors must be corrected before the pay can be completed.

When a pay run is completed, a Single Touch Payroll batch is created and automatically submitted to the ATO.

Before the batch is submitted, you must accept a declaration that the data is correct and that you are authorised to submit it (this is an ATO requirement).

Once a Single Touch Payroll submission has been made, you can view and manage it on the Manage STP Submissions (MP.PP.50.19) form. You can access this form in several ways:
  • The STP batch’s ID code is displayed on the header of the Pay Run Details (MP.PP.31.20) form. Click the ID code to open the Manage Submissions form and display the STP batch for the pay run.
  • The STP Batch column on the Manage Pays (MP.PP.41.10) form displays the ID code of the STP batch for each pay. Click one of the ID codes to open the Manage Submission form and display the STP batch for the relevant pay run.
  • Open the Manage Submissions form directly from the navigation pane, then select the batch to show from the Batch number field.

STP Finalisations

Submitting an STP finalisation event is the last step for end-of-financial-year procedures.

By default, you can click Submit Finalisation Event on the STP Finalise form (MP.PP.50.23) to send finalised STP data to the ATO.

However, you can also preview end-of-year STP data check that the final results are correct before sending the data to the ATO. Here's how:

  1. On the STP tab of the Payroll Preferences (MP.PP.11.00) form, select the Preview STP Finalisations before submission checkbox is selected.
  2. On the STP Finalise form, select the employees you want to send a finalisation for and click Preview Finalistion. The Manage STP Submissions form (MP.PP.50.19) opens with the employee's finalised data.
  3. Review the data and, if it's correct, click Send to ATO. The Single Touch Payroll declaration window appears.
  4. Read the declaration. If you agree, select the I agree checkbox and click OK.

Status of STP Submissions

The status of the batch’s submission with the ATO is on the header of the Pay Run Details form and in the STP Batch Status column of the Manage pays form. The Manage Submissions form gives more detailed information about the batch’s status.

Possible statuses are:
  • No status: the batch hasn't been sent yet.
  • Not created: the system was unable to create an STP batch for the pay run.
  • Not required: there was no need to create an STP batch for the pay run, e.g. if the pay run was cancelled.
  • Submission pending: the batch has been sent, but no reply has been received yet.
  • Submission received: the batch has been sent and successfully received by MYOB’s online services.
  • Submission failed: the batch could not be sent to MYOB’s online services.
  • Submission successful: the batch has been successfully lodged with the ATO.
  • Submission not successful: the batch has been lodged with the ATO, but one or more errors were returned. Details of the errors are displayed on the Errors tab.
To update the status once the batch has been sent, click Check Submission Status on the Manage Submissions form.
Note: Response times from the ATO can vary according to the size of the payroll and the status of the ATO’s services. It can take between a few minutes and a few hours to receive a response, depending on these factors.
On the Manage Submissions form, a batch’s status is broken down into three levels:
  • The status of the batch as a whole is displayed in the form header.
  • The status of each branch included in the batch is displayed on the Payer Details tab.
  • The status of each employee included in the batch is displayed on the Payment Details tab.
Any “Submission not successful” errors in one level will affect the level above, i.e. if one employee is the batch has the status “Submission not successful” on the Payment Details tab, then that employee’s branch will also have the status “Submission not successful” on the Payer Details tab, which will result in the batch having the “Submission not successful” status on the header. If the batch includes any errors, an extra Errors tab is available on the Manage Submissions form.
Note: Records are rejected on an individual basis, i.e. only those employee records that have the “Submission not successful” status have been rejected by the ATO; all others have already been accepted.

Correcting Errors in STP Data

When an STP submission returns an error, you will need to examine the error response and make the appropriate corrections. The method for addressing the error depends on the error status returned:

  • If a batch has the “Not created” status, this could mean that the internal process that creates the STP batch has failed, or that the originating pay run was completed before STP enabled, but is future-dated to a date after STP was enabled. Open the pay run from the Manage Pays form (MP.PP.41.10) to create the batch.
  • If a batch has the “Submission failed” status, this means that the batch could not be sent to MYOB’s online services, which forward the data to the ATO. You will need to re-send the batch manually by clicking the Re-send to ATO button on the Payer Details tab of the Manage Submission form (MP.PP.50.19).
  • If a batch has the “Submission not successful” status, this means that the batch was successfully submitted to the ATO, but the ATO rejected some or all of the batch. You will need to open the batch on the Manage Submission form (MP.PP.50.19) and review the Errors tab to see exactly which records in the batch were rejected. You can then click on the ID of each record to open it in a new window and correct the problems that resulted in the error. Generally, it is not necessary to re-submit the batch—the issues will simply be corrected in the STP batch for the next pay run.