The ATO has been working with software providers and developers to prepare for two changes to payroll reporting lately.
Small Business Superannuation Clearing House (SBSCH)
The first, and already implemented change, is the moving of the Small Business Superannuation Clearing House (SBSCH) from its separate login to be apart of the business, BAS and tax agent portals.
From 26th February, this means for employers who submit superannuation for employers using the free SBSCH, you now need to access it via the business portal. If you haven’t already registered an Auskey for the Business Portal then head over to https://www.ato.gov.au/Business/Business-Portal/ to setup a login. Your BAS agent and / or Tax agent can now also access the SBSCH on your business behalf via their portal access. This will be useful for employers or payroll officers that need a bit of assistance in submitting the superannuation reporting each quarter.
There are other alternatives to the SBSCH, Xero and MYOB offer their own clearing houses. If you are using Xero or MYOB AccountRight Live then we recommend you submit your quarterly (or monthly) employee super via these alternatives. This assists with reconciliation of the payments and payables accounts.
Single Touch Payroll (STP)
Small Business owners are also reminder that those who employee 20 or more employees will need to report employees’tax and superannuation information to the ATO through payroll software that is STP ready from 1 July 2018. For those with 19 or less employees, they have another year to prepare but can choose to start reporting earlier than 1 July 2019.
For businesses that do not have software such as Xero with payroll or MYOB AccountRight Live or Essentials with payroll, you really need to be moving towards STP ready software by April 2018 to be ready in time.
To find out more about STP, head over to the ATO website – http://www.ato.gov.au/stp or contact our bookkeeping team to discuss what actions need to be taken to be STP ready for your business.
