AccXite

In your business it is more likely that you are the only person looking after the payroll. If you are planning to go on holiday, you need to consider how to keep up with the Single Touch Payroll (STP) obligations.

The underlying requirement that drives the STP is you need to report to the ATO on or before the actual payment. If no one will be paid while you are away then you don’t need to do anything as there will be no payments made while you are away. However, if payments are made during your time away you can do the following to meet your STP obligations:

1. Report before you go on leave: If you know the amounts (or you can estimate the amounts and make the adjustments after you are back) that will be paid, you can generate the pay runs and lodge them with the ATO before you go. You need to ensure that the correct payment dates are selected for the pay run so that super is calculated correctly and the payment dates are on or before actual payment date.
2. Delegate the task to another user: As you can have unlimited users accessing your business records, you might have the flexibility to add a new user and give them the lodgement access while you are away. Please note the individual needs to have the authority to lodge the STP with the ATO. You also need to ensure that they can process the actual payments. It is a better practice to let this individual do at least one lodgement before you go on leave so that they would feel comfortable on how to process.
3. Delegate the task to your tax agent: If you have a tax agent, they can be added as a user and you can request them to do the lodgement on your behalf. Your tax agent needs to add them as a STP Authorised Agent in their tax agent portal. You tax agent will do the STP lodgement in AccXite and you will need to arrange for the actual payments to employees. Depending on your service agreements, this might incur additional fees.
4. Delegate the task to AccXite: AccXite is a tax agent and we offer a payroll bureau service. We could become your STP Authorised Agent and process the pays for you and do the lodgments. If you have an existing tax agent it won’t affect your relationship with them. You will provide the payroll details to us. We will process the pays then send you (or another person) the information for your confirmation. Once you confirm, we will lodge the reports and You will arrange for the payment to the employees. The cost for the services is $9.90 per pay slip including GST.