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If you're a new user just starting up with Easy Payslip, before you start generating your regular employee payslips, you will most likely need to enter year-to-date payroll information that covers the 1st of July 20XX up to the current date. This ensures that year-to-date values are reported correctly on new employee payslips
You can then submit your Single touch payroll (STP) file to the ATO to cover the period from the 1st of July to the present date. This is to ensure the ATO records are updated with current amounts for each of your employees.
In Easy Payslip, you do this by creating a single payslip that covers the entire period from 1 July to the present. To do this, you will need to know for each employee:
- the total gross wages paid from the 1st of July to now
- the total PAYG Withholding tax withheld from the 1st of July to now
- the total superannuation due from the 1st of July to now
- any other totals for overtime, reimbursements, allowances etc... that you may have from your current payroll provider, from 1st of July to now
If you have any salary sacrifice since the 1st of July, please get in touch with us, and we'll tell you how to do this.
Before creating these single YTD payslips, take a moment to check that you've completed the Easy Payslip account setup steps:
1. Business/Employer data (ABN etc.)
If you haven't yet completed your employer/business data, then you will need to do this first by heading to the org details screen & updating all mandatory fields.
2. Add/Edit Employee data
If you haven't added your employees yet, you will need to do this by heading to the employee screen & then using the plus sign to add a new employee.
Hint: Because you are about to enter a Year-to-Date payslip for each employee, you may wish to temporarily disable the "Send Payslips to employee" toggle in the Employee record, otherwise the YTD summary payslip will also be automatically sent via email to the employee. Some employers like to use this YTD payslip as a good opportunity to show their staff what their new payslip emails and payslip format will look like, so it's entirely up to you whether you do this!
3. Ensure Two-Factor Authentication is turned on
This is an ATO requirement for Single Touch Payroll. You can download an app such as Google Authenticator on iPhone & android or a web-based chrome extension such as this. You can also get setup two-factor authentication via email or text instead.
You only need to set it up on one device (such as your smartphone) and then use the code generated when accessing your Easy Payslip account from any device.
Step-by-step instructions for this can be found here.
Note: You do not need to contact the ATO to register Easy Payslip as your STP provider, unlike with some of our competitors. Simply submitting your first STP file is enough. We like to keep things Easy!
You're now ready to create a single payslip per employee for Year-to-Date values and send STP files:
1) Go to Payroll Home
2) Enter the '01/07/20XX' for 'Start Date', and the day before the start of the next pay period after today for both 'End Date' and 'Payment Date'. Select the 'Payment Type' as the usual way you pay staff (this field is not especially important, it is not sent to the ATO during STP).
3) Press 'Select All' to select all your Employees to include in the payrun.
4) Press'+ Create Payrun'
5) Enter the gross wages paid amount for the entire period from 1st July in the 'Base Hourly Rate' and enter '1' in the Hours field
6) Press the 'Edit' option next to 'Taxes' & 'Super Guarantee' to display the fields
Enter YTD PAYG Withholding tax and YTD Superannuation amounts from 1st July in each 'Manual Value' field & then press 'Save'.
7) Enter any other totals from your previous payroll provider (if applicable) using the on-screen options (e.g. bonuses, reimbursements etc...)
8) You can click 'Preview Payslip' to double-confirm the values you've entered are accurate. Press 'Save & Send' once all YTD figures have been confirmed.
Note: This will bring up a confirmation screen where you can view the payslip in PDF format & download the PDF as well.
9) Press 'Next', which will bring up the next Employee's Payslip data entry screen and repeat steps 5-7 for each of your employees.
Note: You are now ready to lodge your YTD STP file to the ATO.
10) Press the 'View Summary & STP' button, which will bring up the next screen below to review the figures
11) Press 'Lodge STP File', which will bring you to the declaration screen to sign your name & then press the 'Lodge Single Touch Payroll' button.
Note: Once the STP file has been successfully submitted, a 'clock' icon will display next to the employees' name, which means the STP files are in 'Pending Status'. You can also select the downward arrow to the right of the employee line to view more information on the STP lodgement, like the time & date.
Note: The file details will either have the clock icon for "Pending ATO Response" or a green tick icon to show that it is now completed & the ATO has acknowledged the STP has been successfully received and accepted. It can take up to 72 hours for the ATO to acknowledge receipt, although it usually happens within 30 minutes.
Congratulations! You have now migrated to Easy Payslip! When it's time for your next payrun, you can follow the steps in the help guide Process Payroll and STP.