Many business owners are still not aware that there are some major changes around payroll and compliance coming soon. These changes are referred to as Single Touch Payroll or STP. STP becomes law for all employers from 1 July 2019.
What is Single Touch Payroll ?
A simple way of thinking about STP is, every time you run the payroll you need to report the wages to the ATO. If you are already using STP compliant software, e.g Xero, then the process is quite simple once it is setup. However if you are currently using a spreadsheet or have no payroll software you need to start thinking about what options are available to you.
Your Options for switching to single touch payroll
In order to be ready for STP, you will need to submit compliant reports every payday.
- if you are already using online payroll software, this should be able to handle the job.
- if you are still using desktop software, you will need to find a service that can convert your payroll to an ATO compliant format and submit
- if you are still tied to spreadsheets or pen and paper, again you will need to find a service that will convert this to an ATO compliant format and submit it.
Now is a fantastic time to start thinking about using accounting software or outsourcing to a bookkeeper.
Software Choices and how much is it going to cost?
The ATO set the challenge to software developers to have a standalone payroll software for less than $10 / month. This has seen the development of several software packages available to use if you don’t want to have a full accounting package.
All the major accounting software like Xero and MYOB will have standalone payroll software available for under $10 /month. The advantage of using these, is that later if you want to take up the full accounting software it is generally just an upgrade and you don’t have to setup all your employees from scratch again. This can save heaps of time and stress.
STP becomes law for all employers from 1 July 2019. If you are the director and sole employee of the business, there may be some leeway with this date. But why take the risk and why wait? when Shellys Bookeeping can take care of all of this for you !
Next Steps To Be Compliant In Time ??
Contact us now, and we can discuss what software will suit your payroll needs and help you get setup and running now.