v70.16 - Single Touch Payroll (STP 2)

Owned by Graham Kidd
Last updated: Mar 17, 2022
4 min read

Contents

Child Pages

First Release Version

70.16

What is STP 2?

Single Touch Payroll 2 (STP 2) is an upgrade to STP by the Australian Tax Office.

Assumption

Education Horizons assumes that readers of this page are fully aware of STP 2, and have read ATO information and / or attended ATO webinars information sessions on STP 2.

ATO Resources

The ATO has recommended these pages as a starting point for STP 2 knowledge:

ATO STP Homepage

ATO Guidelines

STP1: 

STP2: 

ATO STP 2 Webinars

Presentations and recordings for employers and tax professionals available in the 'news, events, resources' link here:

Education Horizons Resources

Education Horizons have published these resources

Consulting Support

To arrange for paid Consulting Support raise a Service Desk ticket with the details of what you would like:

Training

There is no dedicated STP 2 training.  STP 2 has been incorporated into the standard Payroll Lab Training sessions

What new information is required?:

  • Under STP 2, the Australian Government requires all employers to report additional information through STP on or before each payday.
  • This information will include details such as income or payment type and the reason for any cessation of employment.
  • STP 2 breaks down Gross Income into sub-types known as Payment Types that have a common definition, rather than a specific definition per Income Type
  • We have written a 'How To Guide' that has detail on the changes and what you need to do to make the change over.

When do these changes come into effect?

  • Synergetic has been granted a deferral on the start date of the STP 2 for our payroll module.
  • This applies to all new and existing customers.
  • Any Synergetic customers using our Payroll module have until 30 June 2022 to report their first STP 2 pay run.
  • This gives Synergetic Payroll customers more time to book in their upgrade and ensure their payroll records are STP 2 compliant.
  • If you require more time, you can apply directly to the ATO for an extension for you school

What changes?

The changes for STP 2 are significant, but not as large as the original STP:

  • fundamentally; the pay process remains the same
  • there are some new fields such as 'Income Stream'
  • there are some new codes such as new 'Termination Reasons'
  • some paylines will require extra information such as 'Country Code'

All changes have been documented in the Synergetic Wiki:

Add the new reports pages links.

STP 2 Changes on v70 only

  • STP2 changes are being made on version 70 only
  • Schools on v69 will need  to upgrade to v70.16 or greater build
  • Please be aware that v70 requires SQL2016 as a minimum

Changes to Tax Scales

To support STP 2, we have created a new set of tax scales, these replace 1, 2, 3, 4 etc.).

  • tax scales are now 4 characters
  • they are derived from a new ATO field called the Tax Treatment Category
  •  a further explanation can be found here:

Changes to PAYG Summaries

The PAYG is now no longer required by the ATO.  They gather the information via STP 2.

PAYG Summaries retained as a legacy process:

  • PAYG statements are no longer part of the Synergetic “official ATO” STP process.

  • PAYG Summary program now ignores any final event indicators.

  • The final event program now ignores any PAYG indicators.

  • Report now has header: "Not an Official ATO Document"

These changes to PAYG Summary will be evident from Install of STP 2 Version

When and how to enable STP 2

Steps

Follow these steps to become STP 2 compliant

  • Upgrade to v70.16 or higher
  • Ensure all required configuration is done
    • We highly recommend configuring and testing in your Test environment first 
  • Ensure all checks have been completed
  • Ensure all current pays are completed and closed
  • Enable STP 2
  • Start submitting STP 2 pay events from the time you enable STP 2

Considerations

  • When deciding when to enable STP 2, consider when is the best time for you.
  • Consider enabling STP 2 straight after a pay that has a gap after it.
  • In this gap undertake the required configuration and employee Pay Detail reviews and become familiar with STP 2.