Single Touch Payroll Phase 2 (STP2) - What's Different?

Single Touch Payroll Phase 2 (STP2) - What's Different?


Single Touch Payroll Phase 2 (STP2) is the second iteration of the Australian Tax Office's system for reporting payroll payments to employees. Major changes have been made to Cashbook to facilitate Employers' ATO reporting requirements to be possible through Practical Systems' Cashbook.

See the following link for more information about Employer Reporting Guidelines for STP2

The biggest visual change to Cashbook will be the Individualised Summary Screen seen in Payroll when you go to the STP Tab to do your reporting.  The STP Summary Screen reflects the itemised details required by the ATO for each employee/payee and on the second tab, the submission details for the employer/payer.

Once you have updated the payee's details, entered the pays and ready to report, perform a New Report in the Single Touch Payroll tab. 

There are 3 different types of reporting:
a) Pay Event - this should be done on the day of payment or in advance of this date i.e. enter the pays early and report this pay a few days early. 
This reports the Payer's Gross.
b) Update Event - can be done when there are changes to the pay event, previous to the last pay. 
This action does not report the Payer's Gross.  Changes will be captured in the next Pay Event
c) Full-file Replacement - should be done if changes need to made to the very last payment made. 
This will update the differences in Payer's Gross made between the initial submission and the subsequent submission for the last pay ONLY.

Verify each payee's submission is correct by clicking on the individual line.  This will allow you to see the summary screen for this employee.

Payee's totals are Year-to-Date



a) Employees have their year-to-date totals reported when you do a submission.  The ATO is very specific about what detail needs to be seperately reported from the Gross Yearly Amounts, please take time to ensure employees are having their pays reported correctly.


 
b) Equally, Employers must be aware of what amounts should be contained in their Gross totals. 
Employer Gross Totals are calculated per pay event for the sum of all the Employees. 

In order to Start Lodgement of your Pay Event, you must click the Submission button as below. 



Click on these links to find out how to make changes:
  1. STP2 - Payee Personal Detail Requirements & Status
  2. STP2 - Payee Income Categorisation
  3. STP2 - Payee Tax Scales 
  4. STP2 - Payee Pay Rates and Allowances, Deductions & other types of pay like Termination Payments
  5. STP2 - Submitting Payments
  6. STP2 - Reviewing Event History