Single Touch Payroll helps to Streamline Reporting
Single touch payroll is a new payroll solution that was launched on the 16th of September 2016 as part of the 2016 Budget Saving (Omnibus) Act. The new framework grants employers or their representatives the native ability to report payments such as pay as you go (PAYG) withholding information, salaries and wages, and other Super information to the Australian Tax Offices right from their payroll software solutions, at the same time they pay their employees.
Before the introduction of Single touch payroll, employers had to manually provide payment summaries to employees and detail the summaries of all these employee payments and their correspondent withholding tax information to the Australian tax office as part of an annual summary report. Single touch payroll acts as convenience button that automatically generates and reports these data sets as the employer fulfills its periodic payment obligations.
Who qualifies for Single Touch Payroll?
The Australian Tax Office has made it mandatory for any business operating with a staff capacity of more than 20 employees to implement a working Single Touch payment solution on or before July 1, 2018.
How it Works
When an employer pays its employees using a Single Touch Enabled payment solution, a bank slip, bank file, Employees’ tax and Employer Super information is generated. The payslip and bank file assure payment to the employee; the employee tax and employer Super information are on the other hand forwarded to the Australian Tax Office following a Standard Business reporting 2 (SBR2) blueprint.
The information channeled to the ATO includes salary and wage details, Pay as you go (PAYG) withholding information and employer’s Super information. The ATO then matches this information set to the corresponding employer/employee profiles, before archiving them on their database. Single Touch Payroll is not just convenient it is, in fact, a more transparent process of handling staff payments. Employers can view their PAYG withholding liabilities on the fly, so also can employees picture their End of financial year, year to date tax and Super information data via personalised portals available at the myGov website.
Advantages of Single Touch Payments
Aside from its apparent convenience and transparency Single Touch payment affords the employer a bevy of other benefits;
An Employer who implements a Single Touch payment Solution is absolved of the need to provide payment summaries and annual payment reports to its employees and the Australian Tax office respectively. The Single Touch Data generated each time a periodic payment is effectuated covers for these needs.
Cost-effectiveness. Because Single touch payroll systems cut out the need for developing payment summaries and annual report, they help the employer save valuable time and monetary resources that would have been otherwise spent on developing these reports.
Given this myriad of benefits, it is very much apparent that Single touch payments Solutions are a no-brainer for businesses looking to scale up their efficiency and effectiveness. In line with this and our drive to lead the frontier for disruptive innovation, SapphireOne will be fully compliant with single touch payroll before 1st of July 2018.
