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The end of the financial year provides a great opportunity for business owners to review and organise their payroll. As the 30th of June approaches, it’s important to meet various compliance requirements, so to help with this busy time we’ve created a simple checklist to help you navigate the payroll process from start to finish.
CHECKLIST
| REVIEW | Done? |
| Review all employee dataName, Address, Date of birth, Tax File NumberCheck all terminations have a termination date | |
| Review entitlements and check they are marked to ‘carry over’. | |
| Ensure all your wages and payroll-related payments have been posted to the correct account in the general ledger. | |
| Check payroll tax registration requirements (each state has separate payroll tax legislation, so it’s important to register for payroll tax if you exceed certain thresholds). | |
| PROCESS PAYROLL | |
| Enter all pays up to the 30th of June. If a pay period spans the payroll year, it’s the payment date that determines which payroll year it belongs to. The wages are taxable in the financial year that they are paid. | |
| RECONCILE | |
| ReconcileReconcile your wages and Pay as you go withholding (PAYGW) to your general ledgerRun your superannuation reports and reconcile them to your general ledgerReconcile superannuation for any missed or late superReconcile your gross wages and PAYGW agrees to your lodged BASReconcile leave entitlement reports to your general ledger | |
| SUPERANNUATION | |
| For super guarantee payments for your employees, it’s essential to report and pay your contributions to their super funds by the quarterly deadline.If you don’t meet the SG contribution payment deadline, you are required to lodge an SG Statement by the due date in the following month. You are also required to pay the ATO’s SG Charge (SGC), which consists of the shortfall amounts, interest and an administration fee. Click here for more information.Review: some employees may be under an industrial award and require the superannuation guarantee to be paid more frequently than quarterly. Check the deadline for other employee super contributions (after tax or salary sacrifice) as per their contract. These can be different to those applying to SG contributions. If there is no other deadline specified, you can forward the employee’s personal after-tax and salary sacrifice contributions to their super fund at the same time you pay your SG contribution. Super contributions are tax deductible upon payment – When you use a clearing house to distribute super contributions to your employees’ super funds, your contributions are considered to be paid on the date the super fund receives them so you must ensure you give enough time for your super payment to be processed. | |
| FINALISATION | |
| Complete STP finalisation – You need to make a finalisation declaration by the 14th of July each year.Ensure all terminated employees have been reported via STP Reporting When you have reported and finalised your employees’ information through STP, you are exempt from: i) providing income statements (payment summaries) to your employeesii) lodging a payment summary annual report | |
| Complete your workers compensation declaration – this is required 28 days after your policy period end date. | |
| If you are required to pay payroll tax (see NSW thresholds here), complete payroll tax annual reconciliation – this is required to be lodged 28 days after year-end on the 28th of July. |
Additional information to tell your employees
- An income statement (previously known as a ‘payment summary’) is the document prepared by your employers where you can see your income for the financial year.
- If your business has reported and finalised payments through STP, you don’t need to provide an income statement to your employees.
- Employees can access their full-year income statement through myGov (or through their registered tax agent).
- Employees should wait until their income statement has a status of being ‘tax ready’ before starting the completion of their income tax return.
- On 1 July, they will see the status of this information change from ‘year-to-date’ to ‘not tax ready’. It will stay like that until you submit your finalisation declaration.
- When you have made the finalisation declaration, your employees will see the status of their payment information change to ‘tax ready’.
- Employees should check their personal details are up to date, and keep you updated. It is also important that the ATO has the most up-to-date data to ensure no discrepancy between information.
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