Successfully lodging payment summaries and superannuation online

Do you have employees? Did you know you need to produce PAYG payment summaries at the end of each financial year?

These payment summaries need to be given to your employees by 14 July and the Annual Report needs to be submitted to the ATO by 14 August.

What are payment summaries?

Payment summaries are forms that report the amount of Gross Wages, PAYG Tax Withheld and Allowances that have been paid to an employee over a financial year. It will also allow you to show any Reportable Superannuation for an employee if applicable. MYOB Business accounting software can create these reports easily for you.

There are three parts to producing the payment summaries in MYOB Business, as shown below. You can also get step-by-step instructions by visiting MYOB Help.

1. Enter the payment summary information
   Enter employees’ details and information about the payments you’ve made to them during the financial year. In most cases you would already have this information entered from when you set the employees up.
2. Review the payment summaries and print copies for your employees
   Check the payment summaries you’ve created for each of your employees and print them or you also have the option to email these as a PDF document to your employees.
3. Create and lodge the payment summaries
   Enter lodgement details and create an electronic copy of your payment summaries (also called an EMPDUPE file) that you can lodge online through the ATO’s portal or provide to your BAS or tax agent for them to lodge for you if you are unable to yourself.

Useful tips

Before finalising your Payment Summaries, make sure that the earnings being reported on your Payment Summaries match to the Wages Expense on your Profit and Loss and PAYG Withholdings in your Balance Sheet. You may also want to check that the Gross Wages and PAYG Withheld matches to your BAS’s lodged throughout the year and make any adjustments if required. If this is not checked and amounts have not been correctly reported on a BAS, it could result in a Payroll Discrepancy from the ATO.

Bear in mind that if you do have any employees that have Salary Sacrifice Payments, these amounts should not be included in your BAS for Gross Earnings nor should they be included in the Gross Earnings on a Payment Summary.

Fair Work Australia require employers to keep payroll records for seven years so it’s a great idea to compile all payroll documents for the financial year including your copies of Payment Summaries and store them together in a file somewhere secure and backed up regularly.

Each financial year, keep an eye out for PAYG Tax and Super Guarantee rate changes. It’s very important that you do have these rates correct from the commencement of a new financial year. With MYOB Business, changes to PAYG Tax and Super Guarantee rates are taken care of automatically, without the need to install any updates.

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One final super contribution before you need to be SuperStream compliant

If you are an employer and not already SuperStream compliant, time is running out.

Here are three things you need to know:

1. SuperStream is a government initiative created to improve the efficiency of the superannuation system using a process that streamlines superannuation payments and employee data.
2. After June 30, all employers with 19 or fewer employees will need to make super contributions on behalf of their employees by submitting data and payments electronically. While it makes things easier if you’re using online accounting software, it does require action on your part to ensure you are lodging correctly.
3. With just one more quarterly payment to be made, businesses need to be ATO SuperStream compliant by 30 June 2016 or risk being penalised by the ATO. Businesses with 20 or more employees should already be ATO SuperStream compliant.

Making super payments directly out of MYOB is really straightforward. One payment takes care of all your employees and each of their super funds. You can make payments monthly or quarterly depending on your business processes.

For more business tips and useful business tools visit myob.com.au/businesstips.