How Single Touch Payroll is bringing software providers together

It’s not often that I get together with Xero, Sage and Reckon for a chat – but Single Touch Payroll (STP) is that important.

On Wednesday I’ll be taking part in a roundtable discussion organised by the ATO on something which has the potential to make reporting for small businesses simpler, namely, STP.

STP is a reporting change which, currently, sees employers with 20 or more employees report tax and superannuation information to the ATO during each pay run – instead of at the end of each financial year.

When employers process their payroll through a cloud system like MYOB, using STP means the information is automatically forwarded to the ATO.

Already we’ve seen the benefits of STP for larger organisations and their employees – MYOB has run over 640,000 STP pay events so far from 20,567 employers.

We’ve already seen the benefits play out for three key groups:

• It’s saving employers time at the end of each financial year, because they don’t have to spend time creating group certificates
• Employees can access their tax and superannuation information through MyGov instead of having to wait until the end of each financial year
• The ATO can cross check superannuation payment information provided by employers and super funds much more accurately

You can read more about STP below:

1. The benefit of switching to STP reporting early
2. The inside word on STP
3. ATO resolves declaration dilemma for STP

MYOB Academy also runs classes on getting ready for STP reporting, which you can access here.

The reason that MYOB is getting together with Xero, Reckon, and Sage is that the government has announced they will legislate to make STP a legal requirement for all employers from 1 July next year.

Read: MYOB vs Xero: More than just beautiful business. Compare for yourself.

Even if it doesn’t end up being legislated, STP has the potential to make business reporting easier and more accurate for all businesses.

The time saved by employers at the end of financial year becomes even more important for small business and microbusiness operators.

While we know larger businesses often have payroll wizards plugging away in the background, in small businesses the owners are often their own payroll officers, and bookkeepers, and HR managers, and finance departments – the list goes on.

Anything which helps small business owners get away from late nights doing compliance work and gives them time to do the more important things like spending time with the family is something that should be applauded.

But we know from our experience with larger employer groups that moving to an STP-enabled solution takes a lot of communication with customers and the broader business environment.

So, it’s important that all parties come to the table to make sure the transition is as seamless as possible.

The first part of it is to make sure that no matter which solution small businesses are using, that they have the best information possible.

What we’ll be talking about

Together with ATO deputy commissioner Deborah Jenkins and Single Touch Payroll assistant commissioner John Shepard, we’ll be covering off on several things.

We’ll go through:

• Our experiences in administering STP so far and how businesses have responded to the change
• The state of play for small and micro businesses
• Data security learnings
• The evolution of STP and;
• Future digital products in the pipeline

This is about businesses and STP practitioners have the best information possible, so they can succeed.

Along with the roundtable, businesses and practitioners will have the opportunity to ask questions and join in the conversation.

It’s vitally important that STP is both adopted and runs smoothly, because at the end of the day it has the potential to save time for businesses and ensure that reporting mistakes are a thing of the past.

It’s why MYOB, Xero, Reckon, and Sage have gotten together to help businesses succeed – because moving to a seamless digital reporting future benefits all Australian businesses regardless of which solution they use.

So, join me in an STP roundtable at 10.30am EST on Wednesday 28 November to go through all the above and more by using the following link: https://publish.viostream.com/app/s-nkpayrm.