How to set up STP in your accounting software – part 2 – MYOB AccountRight

BAS Agent's Blog, MYOB, Payroll & Superannuation, Single Touch Payroll / By / / , , , / 3 minutes of reading

If you’re a small employer with 19 employees or less, you have until 30 September 2019 to connect your accounting software to the ATO for Single Touch Payroll (STP) purposes. If you haven’t yet done so because you simply don’t know how to do it, then this blog is for you! This is a four-part series and we began the series by looking at STP and Xero software. In subsequent blogs we will also cover Saasu and QuickBooks Online.

Connecting your MYOB file for STP

Before the connection of the file to ATO happens, MYOB will ask you to verify that your payroll details, including employee setup, are correct. To begin, go to the Payroll Command Centre and click on “Payroll Reporting”. You will be directed to the “check payroll details” window which will list any anomalies MYOB has found which may inhibit STP connection.

Click on the arrow next to each error and fix the error as needed, then click on “check payroll details” again. If no further errors are found, then you are ready to connect to the ATO.

NB! ATO reporting categories need to be assigned to all of your payroll categories which you are reporting before you use STP. The above check will highlight which payroll categories need to be assigned an ATO reporting category.

To connect, click on “Payroll Reporting”.

Now click on “Connect to the ATO”

If you are the business owner and you will be processing payroll and lodging the payroll via STP, then follow the below directions:

  • Make sure you have your ABN handy.
  • Where you are asked for your role, choose “Someone from the Business”
  • Enter your declarer information including ABN, name, contact details etc.
  • Skip the “Add Clients” step.
  • At the “Notify ATO” step, you will need to provide the ATO with the Software ID number which will be shown to you in the next screen.
  • To give the ATO that special number, you can either call the ATO on this number 1300 85 22 32 or you can notify via Access Manager. You can find Access Manager either in your Business Portal or in your myGov account.

Once you’ve notified the ATO that you are using MYOB software, click on “I’ve notified the ATO” and in the message that appears, click “I’ve notified the ATO”.

If you’re a Tax or BAS Agent who will be processing and lodging payroll on behalf of a business, do exactly the same as above, however for the choice of role, choose “Tax or BAS Agent” and enter your own ABN and registered agent number. You will need to add the client in the “Add Clients” step if they aren’t already in your portal client list. Then note down the Software ID presented to you (note, this number is unique to you – you cannot use your client’s ID and they cannot use yours). Notify the ATO of your ID number as per above. Again, once this is done, you will need to click “I’ve notified the ATO”.

And as Porky Pig would say, “Th-th-th-that’s all folks!” It’s as simple as that. Of course, if you don’t find this as simple as it should be, don’t be shy, give us a call and we’ll see if we can help you out.

In the next blog, we’ll look at how STP is connected in Saasu (or not, as the case may be….). Intrigued? Don’t forget to check in and take a read to find out what we mean!

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How to set up STP in your accounting software – part 1 – Xero

BAS Agent's Blog, Payroll & Superannuation, Single Touch Payroll, Xero / By / / , , / 2 minutes of reading

If you’re a small employer with 19 employees or less, you have until 30 September 2019 to connect your accounting software to the ATO for Single Touch Payroll (STP) purposes. If you haven’t yet done so because you simply don’t know how to do it, then this blog is for you! This will be a four-part series beginning with Xero software. We will cover Saasu, MYOB and QuickBooks Online in subsequent blogs.

Connecting your Xero file for STP

Before proceeding with the connection, it is advised that you review and update your organisation details and also all employee details like dates of birth, tax file numbers and residential addresses. It is also advised that you check your payroll set up especially pay items and ensure they are correct. Your tax professional can assist with this if necessary.

Here are the steps you need in order to connect:

  1. In the Payroll menu, select “Pay employees”.
  2. In the message about Changes to the way you report payroll information to the ATO, click “Get started”.
    If you don’t want to opt-in right now, close the message by clicking Remind me later. To reopen the message, click Setup Single Touch Payroll.
  3. Click Opt-in to confirm.
  4. Review your organisation details. If necessary, click Update Organisation details. Xero will redirect you to the Organisation details page. Otherwise, click Continue.
  5. To connect your Xero account to the ATO, call the ATO on 1300 852 232. If you use the ATO business portal or have a myGov account, you can also log into Access Manager and nominate Xero as your software service provider there – a bit easier than calling the ATO!
  6. Provide the ATO with the proof of ownership listed in Xero’s prompt, including your Australian Business Number (ABN) and Software ID (SSID).
  7. Select the checkbox to confirm you’ve contacted the ATO to connect your Xero account.
  8. Click Register.

Xero will redirect you back to the Pay employees page. You’ll now see an STP filing column in the Pay Run History table.

Once you’re set-up, the option to report a payment to the ATO will be presented for each pay run and your payroll information will be filed with the tax office each time.

I need more information

No problems! Here is the link to the Xero blog about connecting for STP – includes details for business owners and tax professionals connecting on their clients’ behalf.

In part 2 of our blog series, we will look at how to connect MYOB software for STP purposes.

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Accessorial Liability: when to stay and when to run…

BAS Agent's Blog, In My Honest Opinion (IMHO), Payroll & Superannuation / By / / , , , , , / 5 minutes of reading


An accessory to a crime is a person who participates knowingly and voluntarily in the commission of a crime. An accessory can be categorised as before or after the fact (the commission of the crime).   They need not be actually present at the scene of the crime in order to be held liable. 

Legalmatch.com

In the bookkeeping world, there is much chatter about “accessorial liability” especially in relation to those providing payroll services for clients. So what is this about and what does it mean? Basically, as per the above quote, if you are involved in contravening the Fair Work Act 2009 and are knowingly doing so, then, if investigated by the Fair Work Ombudsman (FWO), you could be classified as an accessory to the contravention and be prosecuted accordingly. In simple speak, if you are involved in performing payroll tasks for a client (or your employer) and you know that something is being done illegally or incorrectly in relation to the payroll and you do not do anything to rectify it, you have just made yourself an accessory. The FWO is clear about this and there are no if, buts, or maybes. No excuses accepted. So there are 3 aspects to accessorial liability – being involved, knowing it’s happening, and doing nothing to stop it. Is this scary for bookkeepers? You bet your life it is!

Should I stay or should I go now?

So if you’re a bookkeeper reading this and you’re not already scared about your involvement in your clients’ payroll, then you should be! In general, you do your best and bring your expertise and knowledge to the task, and hope that all will be well. But is that enough? Perhaps not it seems. The FWO will have us believe we need to do more in order to avoid becoming an accessory to payroll contraventions. So what can you do if you suspect something is out of kilter with a client’s payroll? Athena Koelmeyer from Workplace Law makes the following suggestions:

  • Arrange for a payroll audit to be performed by a professional HR service. This will uncover any anomalies and errors being made and assistance will be provided to rectify them.
  • Make sure that appropriate processes are in place and are being followed correctly. These processes should include:
    • ensuring employers (your clients) are across their obligations under the Fair Work Act 2009, modern awards and any record-keeping obligations
    • ensuring employees are properly classified under their relevant award
    • ensuring employees pays are correctly in terms of minimum rates of pay, allowances, penalties and loadings
    • ensuring all payroll records are compliant and correct
    • keeping up to date with changes to modern awards, especially pay rates, allowances, loadings, penalty rates etc.
    • conducting regular audits of your payroll set up, especially when using generic software
  • If you discover any anomalies with your client’s payroll, communicate this immediately with the client and ensure that they rectify the situation. Keep written records of the steps that were taken to repair the issue/s. If neither you or your client can rectify the issues, seek professional advice and assistance. Do not ignore the situation.

The above is great advice is should be followed if you are going to provide a best-practice service to your client. As bookkeepers, however, we all know that in reality, making clients cross the t’s and dot the i’s is not as easy as it sounds. Some clients take your advice on board and some don’t for whatever reason. So what is Athena’s advice if you find yourself working with a client who is openly flaunting Fair Work laws and who refuses to make any improvements? Basically, her advice is to

RUN FORREST, RUN!

Athena says you always have to come back to the accessorial liability provisions under section 550 of the Fair Work Act when making your decision about whether to persist or leave. She says that where you are involved (processing payroll) AND you know that payroll processes as above are not sufficient, AND you don’t do anything about it (even if you tried to), you will be seen as an accessory in the event of prosecution. While this is not the forum to go into possible charges and legal consequences of said prosecution, I’m sure you’ll agree that you do not want to go there! Athena recommends that you should terminate your engagement with these types of clients immediately, no questions asked, and just walk away. Before walking away, always put your concerns and any steps taken to rectify the situation in writing to the client and retain this as your record in the event that you are pursued by the FWO. She also advises that you should report non-compliant clients to the FWO as an extra means of protecting yourself. Athena says, and I quote:

If a payroll provider makes a client aware that their systems are not compliant, refuses to participate in the contravening conduct and terminates the relationship with them, then the payroll provider has done all that they can do to make the client aware of their non-compliance and not participate in any contraventions.

Payroll HQ

In my opinion, there isn’t any job worth doing where you are putting yourself at risk of litigation and possible jail time. If you are reading this and you think you may be at risk, then get some advice from a trusted advisor and/or your bookkeeping association. If you are sure you are at risk, then take Athena’s advice and run, run, run, and don’t look back!

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Don’t Forget Those Cash Receipts!

BAS Agent's Blog / By / / , , , / 2 minutes of reading

Do you buy business items with your own non-business funds i.e. your cash? Do you include these purchases in your accounts? Surprisingly, some of our clients don’t think that they can or should include cash receipts in their books. This is not the case!

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Why We Love the Cloud

BAS Agent's Blog / By / / , , / 3 minutes of reading

Here at e-BAS Accounts we have embraced the concept of operating our business via the cloud. In short, we love the cloud! So what is the cloud and why do we love it?

The cloud is the current term currently being thrown around meaning “all things online”. Basically, any software you might access on your desktop or laptop, you can now access online. Okay, so why do we love it?

There are 5 reasons why we love the cloud:

1. Accessibility: The applications we use in our business are available to us on any computer, anywhere, and anytime as long as there is an internet connection available. This means we are no longer tied to our office for the purposes of accessing information. We can now access emails, accounts information, our favourite apps, etc. anytime and anywhere. Our office is now completely mobile. If we want to work on the beach at Torquay we can; if we want to sit in the park on a sunny day and process client accounts, we can; if we want to access our emails while travelling on a train, we can. You get the picture 🙂

2. It’s Cheap: Cloud applications are generally cost-effective. We can usually try an application out for free for a short period and then agree to pay a low monthly fee to continue to use the service. What’s more, we can opt-out at any time we like if we find an application better suited to our needs. It means we can operate our business on a relatively low budget, accessing some of the best and most useful applications currently available.

3. It’s Always Current: The applications we use are always up to date. No longer do we have to purchase upgrades to our desktop software. Upgrades are taken care of in the background by the cloud providers. We will never have to worry about this and what’s more, it’s part of the monthly fees we pay – it’s not extra so no ugly surprises.

4. Security & Backups: Cloud providers build their products with your data security being of the utmost importance. The same security levels we enjoy when using online banking are often used for cloud applications. We believe that is more secure to place your data into the cloud than it is to leave it on your desktop or laptop. Why? Because using the cloud is like having a continuous backup system in place. Your data is always there – it can’t be destroyed by fire, theft or flood; it can’t be corrupted or lost by computer malfunction; it can’t be accessed and altered by unauthorised staff members, etc. To keep your data totally secure, you must keep it off site and there is no site more off-site than the cloud!

5. Working Remotely: Cloud applications allow us to work remotely with our clients whether they be 5 km or 500 km away. Here are some of the applications we use here at e-BAS Accounts which make working remotely possible:

  • Go To Meeting: Allows us to hold meetings with clients no matter where they live
  • Saasu and Xero: Online accounting software which eliminates the need to send data files to and from clients/accountants and/or worry that those files are current or possibly corrupt etc.
  • TeamworkPM: Our project management platform
  • Dropbox: For file sharing and backup with clients
  • Office 365 and Google Apps: Make the mobile office a reality
  • Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin: Part of our current marketing strategy; networking strategy; learning strategy

The cloud is central to our business mission here at e-BAS Accounts – to enhance flexibility, collaboration, and efficiency by working remotely with clients and team members; we do this by primarily using online apps via the cloud. The cloud has basically made our little business possible. We believe it is the way of the future office and far better than the alternative.

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BAS & Bookkeeping Services – Aren’t They the Same Thing?

BAS Agent's Blog / By / / , , / 2 minutes of reading

If you want to be a bookkeeper in today’s environment and abide by the Tax Agent Services Act 2009, you will need to ask yourself a question: What sorts of services do I want to provide to my clients?

If the answer includes:

…

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Common GST Mistakes

BAS Agent's Blog / By / / , , , , / 3 minutes of reading
GST Mistakes

When you’re completing your activity statements, it’s easy to make mistakes. It happens a lot and we see them first hand here at e-BAS Accounts. The main mistakes users make are in relation to tax codes. Users often use the wrong tax code when entering various transactions into their software. Here are some common transactions that are often coded incorrectly. We show the correct tax code application:

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How to get started with Single Touch Payroll

MYOB, Payroll & Superannuation, QuickBooks Online, Saasu, Single Touch Payroll, Xero / By / / , , , / 5 minutes of reading

As mentioned in our last blog, smaller employers with less than 19 employees will need to start reporting their payroll data via Single Touch Payroll by 1 July 2019. That’s not far away and if this affects you, you need to start getting ready now! Don’t panic though, we are here to help and to that end, we have prepared a “get started with STP” checklist to assist you.

Before sharing our checklist with you, just a little bit of background for those in the “I don’t know anything about STP” camp…

What is STP?

STP is a reporting change regarding your payroll. Instead of reporting your payroll data once to the ATO at the end of the financial year, you will report each pay run or “payroll event” (as it is now called) to the ATO at the time it is processed. The reporting will be done via your accounting software. Your payroll processes do not need to change – the only change is that your payroll information will be reported more often to the ATO.

Why STP?

The ATO are trying to streamline the processes for employers and employees regarding all things payroll, from providing employers with current tax file number information and super details of new employees, to allowing employees to see their tax and super information in real time. Some benefits of STP can include:

  • No more payment summaries (or “income statements” as they now called). Employers will no longer need to provide employees with payment summaries as they will now access them via their myGov accounts instead, once the final pay event of the financial year is sent to the ATO via STP.
  • No more PSAR’s – employers will no longer need to provide the ATO with a payment summary annual report.
  • Employees can see at any time, their year-to-date payments from employers, superannuation paid, access their payment summaries and also access their Notice of Assessment once their tax return is completed. They will be able to access all of this information via their myGov accounts.
  • Employers will be able to offer online commencement forms to new employees including the TFN declaration, Superannuation Choice form and Medicare levy variation declaration form. This will all be available via myGov and will be provided to both the employer and the employee making onboarding a new employee a more streamlined process and helping to delays and errors.

Getting started with STP Checklist

The first thing to know about STP is that nothing really changes for you. You will continue to process your payroll as you always have except that at the end of each pay run, you will click a button in your accounting software and send the payroll data to the ATO. Of course, before you can do this, you need to set up STP in your software and ensure that the ATO knows about it! Below is a list of items you need to do in order to get ready for STP.

  1. Decide when you want to start reporting via STP. You can begin right now if you wish, meaning your 2018-19 FY year-to-date payroll data will be sent to the ATO. You can wait until the official start date i.e. July 1 2019 or you can opt in some time between July 2019 and September 30 2019 as the ATO are allowing smaller employers to delay STP until the end of the first quarter in the 2019-20 FY (but no later).
  2. Employees and myGov accounts. In the near future, all communications from government departments including the ATO, will only be available via a myGov account. You need to tell your employees to register for a myGov account now. Here is a link you can share with employees from the ATO about STP and how it relates to them. You can also provide them with this link to assist them to register for a myGov account https://www.humanservices.gov.au/individuals/online-help/create-mygov-account
  3. Perform a payroll health check. The ATO advise that it is good practice to review all payroll items and employee setups etc. before starting to report via STP to ensure that payroll data reported is accurate and correct. We think this is a good idea too. Check things like allowances, superannuation rate, salary sacrifice, deductions, PAYG withholding rate, employees’ contact details, using correct award, agreement and/or contract etc.
  4. Connecting your software to the ATO for STP. In order to lodge payroll data via STP, firstly, you need to notify the ATO of the special software ID (SID) number from your accounting software. There are several ways to do this. If you have access to your business portal, you will notify via Access Manager. If you have your ABN connected to your myGov account, you can notify via myGov. If you don’t have either of those options available, you can call the ATO on 1300 85 22 32 and notify over the phone. Note, this is an important step and if not done, you will not be able to send your STP report to the ATO. See more information here. Once you have notified the ATO re the SID, you are ready to set up STP in your software and start reporting. Below are some links re to how to set up STP in each of the more common accounting software packages to get you started:

Need more help?

Further information or reading. If you would like further information or would like to do some reading about STP, here are some links which may assist you:

We can help – give us a call..

We realise that this is a lot to take in and that you will probably have questions or need assistance with set up. Please feel free to contact us to make an appointment to discuss your needs etc. We’d be happy to assist.


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