THIS IS A WIP PAGE
Introduction
Synergetic now supports the latest version of Single Touch Payroll (STP2). Our developers have worked hard to automate the transition to STP2, but there are still several areas of the software that must be manually checked to ensure you understand and are fully-compliant with the STP2 specification.
In this topic you will check the following areas of Synergetic to ensure STP2 is correctly configured:
- Pay Code Maintenance. See Pay Code Maintenance.
- Lookup Table Maintenance - Finance. See Lookup Table Maintenance - Finance.
- Payroll Maintenance. See Payroll Employee Maintenance.
- Payroll Configuration. See Payroll Configuration.
Important: You need to be running the version v70.x or later. Please contact Synergetic Support if you have not upgraded to this version.
Pay Code Maintenance
.png?version=1&modificationDate=1642598761223&cacheVersion=1&api=v2&width=450&height=309)
Pay Code Maintenance has been updated to support grouping pay by income stream and additional reporting categories designed to split up gross pay into amounts for:
- gross
- paid leave
- allowances
- overtime
- bonuses and commissions
- directors' fees
- lump sum W (return to work)
- salary sacrifice.
Note: The ATO refers to this change as the "disaggregation of gross". For more information, see the following page from the ATO website: Expanding Single Touch Payroll Phase 2.
You will need to check that all pay codes to be used in STP 2 are correctly configured for:
- taxable pay codes
- deduction pay codes
- superannuation pay codes
- leave pay codes
- allowance pay codes
If you have employees who are paid under a non salaries and wages (SAW) income stream you will need to ensure pay codes specific to that income stream(s) have been configured.
Lookup Table Maintenance - Finance
.png?version=1&modificationDate=1642599171343&cacheVersion=1&api=v2&width=705&height=250)
Finance lookup tables have been updated to supported new tax scales and valid employee termination reasons defined by the Australian Government.
You will need to check the:
- luPayrollTerminationReason lookup table to ensure Australian Government cessation codes are correctly mapped to Synergetic lookup table records.
- luPayrollTaxationRate lookup table to familiarise yourself with the new tax scales and understand how they relate to the previous tax scales.
Employee terminations must be reported using Australian Government cessation codes. These cessation codes are mapped to termination reasons using the ExternalSystemType and ExternalSystemCode fields of the luPayrollTerminationReason lookup table.
Note: Synergetic maps the cessation codes during installation, but the mapping must be checked to ensure it is correct.
Tax scales have been updated to use a four character code that combines with additional fields on the Tax tab of Payroll Employee Maintenance (see below) to define the tax treatment of each employee.
These tax scales can be viewed using the luPayrollTaxationRate lookup table. We recommend checking this lookup table to familiarise yourself with the new tax scales and understand how they relate to the previous tax scales (see the LegacyTaxScale field).
.png?version=1&modificationDate=1642508031267&cacheVersion=1&api=v2&width=1064&height=245)
Payroll Employee Maintenance
.png?version=1&modificationDate=1642599848077&cacheVersion=1&api=v2&width=450&height=263)
Payroll Employee Maintenance has been updated to support new employee taxation fields and termination reasons.
You will need to check the:
- General tab to ensure valid termination reasons are selected for employees terminated during the 2022 Payroll Year
- Tax tab to ensure employee taxation details have been correctly converted.
Employees terminated during the 2022 payroll year must be terminated using termination reasons linked to the new Australian Government cessation codes. We have already mapped the records of the luPayrollTerminationReason lookup table to the new cessation codes, so now we will select a valid reason for each terminated employee on the General tab of Payroll Employee Maintenance.
To check whether valid termination reasons are selected for terminated employees:
- Select Module > Payroll > Payroll Employee Maintenance from the Main menu.
- Select 2022 in the Payroll Year field.
- Select Yes in the Terminated Employees field.
- Click OK.
- Click the General tab.
- Select an employee using the Payroll Employee Selector.
- Select a termination reason using the Reason drop-down list.
- Repeat steps 5 and 6 for the remaining employees.
Synergetic automatically converts existing taxation details to the STP2 specification during the upgrade, but you must check the following fields for each employee to ensure the conversion was successful:
- Tax scale
- Medicare Levy Surcharge
- Medicare Levy Reduction
- Tax Treatment Code
- Employment Basis
- Super Liability/OTE Submit
- Income Type.
To check employee taxation details have been correctly converted:
- Select Module > Payroll > Payroll Employee Maintenance from the Main menu.
- Click OK.
- Click the Tax tab.
- Select an employee using the Payroll Employee Selector.
- Check whether:
- Tax Scale field is populated with a valid (four character) STP2 tax scale code
- Medicare Levy Surcharge and Medicare Levy Reduction fields are populated
- Tax Treatment Code populates correctly
Note: This read-only field is a combination of the values selected for the Tax Scale, Medicare Levy Surcharge and Medicare Levy Reduction.
- Employment Basis field is populated with the employment of the payroll employee (e.g. Full Time Employee)
- Super Liability/OTE Submit field is populated, if necessary
- Income Type is populated with Salary or Wages.
- Repeat steps 4 and 5 for the remaining employees.
Payroll Configuration
.png?version=1&modificationDate=1642603246503&cacheVersion=1&api=v2&width=457&height=250)
- Tax Rates
- Switching on STP2
- When you are ready to move from STP1 to STP2 you will enable STP Version 2
- You will be able to set your payroll to STP2 Test Mode
- When ready to start submitting STP2 files to the ATO de-select Test Mode
NB: It is not recommended to keep switching test mode on and off again but can be used for the purposes as described above
Processing Pays in STP2
Changes to processing in current pay maintenance
- When using a pay code for leave you will need to know
Processes to add / consider
- Potentially change leave documentation to include reason for leave