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Moving from Xero Payroll to Easy Business App is a very straight-forward process. It should take you between 15 - 30 minutes depending on the number of employees you have.
You do not need to contact the ATO at any point during the process.
If you'd like some support during the process, we'd recommend you do it during business hours, then you can either call us or click the chat bubble in the bottom-right of the screen to have a support agent help you with any questions. That's a real person, by the way, not a bot.
There are two options for migration:
- Finalise STP in Xero for each of your employees, then just start processing new payruns in Easy Business App from today.
- "Zero Out" year-to-date balances in Xero, and then create a one-off YTD payslip in Easy Business App to bring the totals for each employee over.
Which option you choose will depend on what is easier/most important to you. Both options are absolutely fine with the ATO.
Option 1 — Finalise STP in Xero
Pros:
- No need to enter a YTD payslip in Easy Business App.
- Slightly faster to process.
Cons:
- Your employees will see two lines on their year end income statement in their mygov portal at tax time (both for your ABN) with their total earnings split between them. This is totally fine with the ATO and is normal when a payroll provider changes. (You don't need to read this, but here is the ATO's view).
- Your employees will not see their year-to-date values on their new payslips you create in Easy Business App.
Steps in Xero:
1) Finalise your current year to date values Xero: Refer to the instructions for Xero on How to Finalise STP for each employee.
2) Run the Leave Balances report to see each employee's outstanding leave balance. You'll be able to enter this into Easy Business App when setting up your employees. Refer to the instructions for Xero on Running a Leave Balance report.
3) (Optional, but recommended) You may wish to download some PDF reports for your records from Xero, for example the Payroll Employee Summary reports.
Steps in Easy Business App:
1) Create your employee records for each employee. Remember to add their Leave balances in the Leave tab into the 'Carried Over Balance (hours)' field for each leave type.
2) Continue your pay run reporting as normal in Easy Business App. Refer to the help guide Process Payroll and STP for more detailed instructions.
Option 2 — Zero Out year-to-date balances in Xero
Pros:
- Employees will see year-to-date values on their payslips created in Easy Business App
Cons:
- Slightly longer process — you'll need to note down totals for each employee from Xero and create a one-off year-to-date payslip for each employee in Easy Business App to transfer across all the YTD values for pay, overtime, reimbursements etc...
- Slight chance of keying errors if you mis-type a figure.
Steps in Xero:
1) Run the Payroll Activity Summary report to see the payrun totals for each employee for the year to date.
2) You will now need to create an unscheduled payrun in Xero with negative YTD amounts for each employee. You can find more details here.
Steps in Easy Business App:
1) Create your employee records for each employee. Remember to add their Leave balances in the Leave tab into the 'Carried Over Balance (hours)' field for each leave type.
2) Refer to the help guide Add Year To Date (YTD) values in Easy Payslip and STP for New Users for the steps to create the YTD payslip.
Use the figures you noted down from Xero above above to create the YTD payslips.
Getting Help
If you have any questions with either option above, you can contact our support team via telephone, live chat or email for some assistance. We're happy to help!
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Do I need to contact the ATO to register Easy Business App as my STP provider?
No. We use a different communication method with the ATO than a lot of our competitors, which means you do not need to call the ATO. When you submit your first STP file, this happens automatically. We like to keep things easy!
What will my employees see? What do your payslips look like?
Your employees will receive PDF payslips via email from us when you do your regular payruns. If you would also like to receive these in CC, you can go to 'Manage Org. & Subscriptions', click on your name under the 'Organisation Members' list, and select the 'Receive Payslip Emails' toggle.
Your payslip PDFs will look like the dummy payslip below — note the clickable link 'Understanding Your Payslip' in the bottom-right. This article can help your employees to understand the different items they'll see.
Can I invite other users to access my account?
Yes. As many as you like. For free.
You can invite your accountant, bookkeeper, business partner and anyone else who helps you run your business and control which modules they have access to.
Learn more in the help guide Invite Additional Users to your Organisation.
What else can you do in Easy Business App, besides payroll in Easy Payslip?
Easy Business App is simple, modular business software that lets you:
- Process payroll (Easy Payslip)
- Link your bank account to keep track of all your business ins and outs (Easy Cashflow)
- Send invoices and quotes, and accept online payments (Easy Invoicing)
- Track your expenses (Easy Cashflow), and
- Run reports about every area of your business (Easy Reports).
You only pay for the modules you use, and some of them are free, or have a free plan. There are no monthly minimum spends, no lock-in contracts and no annual commitments. You can just turn modules on-and-off as you need them or want to try them out. Easy!
Is my data safe with you?
Absolutely. We are an ATO Digital Service Provider, which means we have to comply with their Operational Security Framework. There's an annual check in place to ensure we comply with that.
Furthermore, we are ISO 27001 Certified (here's our ISO 27001 certificate) which means we have been independently audited for Information Security. Read more here about how we Keep Your Data Secure.
I have other questions. Can you help?
Yep. You can call, live chat or email us from our Contact Us page.