9th August, 2019
With the advent of Single Touch Payroll (STP), a new era of payroll compliance has begun. Luckily, the technology exists to make staying compliant a breeze for enterprise-level businesses.
At its most basic, paying your staff should be simple – your team puts in the hours, you hand over the cash. Anyone who’s run a business will tell you straight away that it’s far more complex than that.
Even aside from the systems needed to record hours and pay out correctly, governments overlay complexity that needs to be factored in too – this might include award agreements and leave, superannuation funds, varying levels of taxation, and reporting.
Safe to say, navigating payroll compliance is a complicated business.
At the same time, software developers have been working hard to design solutions that take much of that administrative burden away, while also ensuring your business stays compliant.
These solutions automatically send data down the line, and ensure pay runs are calculated using correct and up-to-date information for time worked, leave and deductions. You’ll also have every aspect of payroll taken care of, including leave-loading, overtime or penalty rates.
A good solution scales as your team grows and is housed on one integrated platform – it doesn’t rely on third-party apps. The outcome? More confidence in your numbers, less risk of becoming non-compliant, and far fewer manual fixes.
Cloud-based solutions, also known as software-as-a-service (SaaS) are especially powerful when new legislation comes into force – like Single Touch Payroll (STP) in Australia.
For some businesses, these compliance changes can often feel like the goal posts are changing constantly – you finally establish systems to cope with one set of rules, only to have them change on you.
When the software is constantly updated to suit these changes, as it is with the likes of MYOB PayGlobal, staying compliant feels almost seamless.
That’s the experience of Southern Cross Electrical Engineering. Its payroll manager, Michelle Farmer, said she “feels pretty privileged” with the way MYOB helped them manage the switch.
When STP is enabled in PayGlobal, it sends a report directly to the ATO which includes required information such as salaries and wages, PAYG withholding tax and super.
“I was at an Australian-wide PWC conference and the thing that got me was a lot of people were saying they use STP, but they had no indication when or if ATO had received their files,” said Farmer.
“When I send my files, I get an almost automatic response saying my file has been accepted.
“I’m thinking PayGlobal has done a really good job.”
Southern Cross is a heavy user of the system, sometimes processing a pay run every day of the week – a recipe for disaster if the changeover to STP wasn’t managed correctly.
After 12 months, the transition was easier than anticipated.
“At first I thought this [STP] was going to be painful but it wasn’t,” said Farmer.
“I think it’s because of the way PayGlobal set it up which made things so much easier.”
She said if she had to use other software that delivered less visibility, she’d find the job hard to do.
“Other people are saying they virtually have no visibility over anything.
“There were some who had errors they didn’t know how to fix; no-one had got back to them and they’d been sitting there for weeks.
“I think it’s great we’re getting so much information, because STP is so important.”
PayGlobal’s automation is, undoubtedly one of its best features – removing manual work, and the potential for errors.
Farmer currently runs STP manually each pay run, but is looking forward to getting PayGlobal to do this for her automatically.
“I wanted to see how things went for the first 12 months.
“Soon, we’ll automate the STP files and then all I’ll have to do is go in and check the errors – that’ll be an even better function of it,” she said.
Support from MYOB was invaluable in the lead-up to the compliance change. A few minor glitches were quickly resolved with the support of the PayGlobal helpdesk team.
“When I’ve raised an issue with the PayGlobal support team, they’ve been helpful and quick. They gave me the confidence to leave the issue with them to fix – and they would do it.”
Navigating payroll doesn’t have to be as complicated as you think. As Southern Cross Electrical Engineering can attest to, with the right software, dealing with legislative changes can actually feel seamless.
PayGlobal automatically generates and sends reporting through to ATO to keep companies compliant. The wrap around support from MYOB, plus the easy user interface, complete the picture – an error-free, automatically compliant payroll system, whatever new legislation throws at you.
From EBAs and leave, to PAYG and Super, navigating awards is complicated. MYOB PayGlobal reduces the burden of compliance by automatically sending data down the line. Click here to find out more.