AU Payroll - Single Touch Payroll (STP) Maintenance

STP reporting became mandatory as of 1 July 2018 except where an exemption was issued by the ATO that allows STP reporting commencement to be deferred until your business is ready for the transition to STP and your payroll software can support it.

FastTrack have obtained deferrals from the ATO for all current clients to provide more time for preparing your business and for upgrading to a STP complaint version of FastTrack360. FastTrack have also compiled a STP go-live schedule for existing clients to help directly manage your transition to STP.

It is important that you do not enable STP reporting in FastTrack360 and attempt to commence STP reporting prior to the scheduled date that is agreed with FastTrack. This is because once you report through STP, the ATO requires you to continue to do so and therefore it is important that you have carried out all necessary steps in preparation to commence STP reporting.

If you are unsure of when you are scheduled to commence STP reporting, please contact your FastTrack account manager.

Company contractors (payees with a tax type of Company) are not subject to STP reporting unless they have a voluntary withholding agreement. Company contractors are contractors who contract through an interposed entity (for example, a partnership or trust).

In FastTrack360, the Payee record of a company contractor can be configured so that there is a voluntary withholding agreement for one or more, but not necessarily all, validity periods that the Payee record covers. This caters for situations where a company contractor has a voluntary withholding agreement for part but not the entire duration of their engagement by your business.

However, to ensure that payments made to company contractors, who are subject to a voluntary withholding agreement, are reported correctly via STP it is important that the voluntary withholding agreement applies for the entire duration (each validity period) of the Payee record.

Therefore, if an existing company contractor enters into a voluntary withholding agreement, a new Payee record must be created and the voluntary withholding option must be enabled on the new Payee record. Likewise, if an existing company contractor needs to cease an existing voluntary withholding agreement, a new Payee record must be created without the voluntary withholding option.