Overview
Employers are required to report salary or wages, PAYG withholding, and superannuation information to the ATO from COINS at the same time the employees are paid; essentially, after the payroll has been processed rather than previously reporting monthly or quarterly.
The ATO uses the data to populate MyGov accounts, where employees are able to generate Income Statements, eliminating this process from the employers.
A finalisation declaration is due by the 14th of July each year. What a finalisation means:
Advising the ATO that the organisation has completed all pays for the payroll year.
The status of the employee’s income statement in MyGov changes to “Tax ready” so they can pre-fill and lodge their tax return.
When you have reported and finalised your employee’s information through STP, you are exempt from:
Providing payment summaries to your employees
Lodging a payment summary annual report to ATO
If you can’t make a finalised declaration by the 14th of July, you will need to apply for a deferral.
You will need to provide a payment summary for any payments not reported through STP.
Finalisation Pay Event
An employer is required to make a declaration to the ATO that they have provided all the information for each employee for a financial year. This is done by providing the Finalisation Indicator as a part of an employee’s STP report.
The finalisation declaration allows the ATO to make the employee information available for income tax return pre-fill for employees. It also updates the employee’s MyGov payroll page.
The declaration can be made at any time throughout the financial year, after the end of the financial year up to 14th July.
Business Rules:
The final event indicator is reported per payee, per payroll Id/payee identity as a part of the payee record.
A payer must finalise each payee for each BMS Id, under which they are reported.
A final event indicator may be provided in a submit or update action.
📌Note: Finalisation is only an indicator within the file. The process is UPDATE using actins FINALISE and UNFINALISE.
Finalisation During Financial Year
If a finalisation declaration is made during a financial year, you do not need to provide the employee with a part-year payment summary.
If an employee is paid and has already been reported with a finalisation declaration for the financial year, consider the following:
If it is a one-off payment – make another finalisation declaration when you report this payment
If you expect to make another payment (for example, you re-hire the employee) – unselect the finalisation indicator and wait until the end of the financial year to make another finalisation declaration.
If you finalise an employee partway through the financial year, it will change the status of the employee MyGov account to ‘Tax Ready’. However, the ATO will not pre-fill the information until after the end of financial year.
The employee will need to follow the current process for lodging a part-year tax return.
Finalisation After End of Financial Year
Employers must provide the final event indicator for all employees by the due date 14th July.
The employer should apply for more time from the ATO if they cannot finalise by the due date.
If the employer does not provide the final event indicator by the due date, the employer may be subject to a penalty.
If the final event indicator is provided after the EOFY, it must be provided through an update event.
Income Statement
ATO encourages all employees to access their income statement from their MyGov account. The ATO sends a notification to the MyGov account advising when the employee income statement is ‘tax-ready’ so the tax return can be completed.
When ATO receives validated pay events, the employee details are matched against the ATO records to assign the pay event to the correct record. The run date/time stamp is used to point to the latest record for YTD data from the employer. The data is displayed on ATO Online Income Statement for each ABN /BMS Id/Payroll Id/TFN, showing a status of:
Year to Date – progressive balance throughout the current financial year
Not Tax Ready – after 30 June if the record is not yet finalised by the payer
Tax Ready – when the payer has finalised the record, before or after 30 June.
If the employer amends a finalised STP Income Statement, the ATO may issue an amended assessment to the payee.
Previous configuration which enabled COINS to automatically email employees the Payment Summary should be disabled.
Reconciliation
Access Coins do not provide any specific reconciliation process, however by running the following reports for ‘year’ totals, you can reconcile back to the STP Employee Pay Summary report:
Earnings and Deductions (be aware of codes that are both an earning and a deduction)
Tax Report
Superannuation
The YTD figures should match the STP Payment Summary report and Historical Earnings and Deductions report from the finalised STP file once validated.
Ensure all the total reportable payments such as Gross payments, Allowances, Reportable Employer
Superannuation Contributions, Reportable Fringe Benefits, Lump Sum Payments A, B, D & E, Employment Termination
Payments and Tax withheld in your YTD payroll report match the totals to be finalised through Single Touch Payroll.
The amount of tax withheld from payments should be the same as the amount remitted to the ATO. You may need to check with the finance department to ensure that the correct amount of tax has been remitted.
Generate PaySummary
The Generate PaySummary process can be run throughout the year for reconciliation purposes. It generates employee Year to Date figures.
Payroll > Company Setup > AUS Tax Tables & Pay Summary > Generate PaySummary
This option generates, for each selected employee, the end of financial year data required for the ATO to finalise the Update PAYEVNT file.
ReCalculate: Where Generate PaySummary has previously been run throughout the year, ensure that the ReCalculate box is flagged.
Include Non Posted Periods: This flag is for ‘testing’ purposes only. Normally, Payment Summaries are extracted ‘only’ from the posted periods. However, if users wish to check the Payment Summary values throughout the year to monitor the values, they can tick this box, and Coins also extracts the ‘non posted’ transactions.
Sample of report output:
This report can be run throughout the year to reconcile back to your payroll.
If pay-by-pay reconciliation has been performed throughout the year, it is less likely that discrepancies may be encountered at the end of the financial year.
If some values have been allocated to the incorrect location, i.e., allowance 1 instead of allowance 2 or gross payment, you can easily readjust the configuration in the Earning Categories and Pay Calculations to point to the correct location and rerun the Payment Summary again.
Best practice would be to run this report throughout the year before End of Financial Year. The details can be reviewed in Maintain PaySummary and necessary amendments or investigations can be completed as required.
Maintain Payment Summary
Once Generate PaySummary has run, data is displayed in Maintain PaySummary.
Payroll > Company Setup > AUS Tax Tables & Pay Summary > Maintain PaySummary
Every employee who has received a payment within COINS has history stored here, as well as the current financial year record.
By opening an individual record, you have the ability to manually include additional information, such as FBT Grossed up values.
ETP codes on this form are hard coded and auto populated from the Employee termination process. You do have the option to modify this code if required.
📌Note: Coins recommends creating new column sets for STP2 to enable extraction of data for reconciliation purpose for Lumps Sum and ETP data.
When you drill into an employee record a number of tabs will be displayed to show the break-up of employee YTD as per ATO Disaggregation of Gross for Income type.
📌Note: The below fields can be manually updated in Maintain PaySummary and reported in the Update PAYEVNT:
Fringe Benefits Amounts
Lumpsum A Paytype (T or R)
All ETP values including date and ETP code
If any other fields are incorrect, these must be resolved through the payroll.
If other fields are overridden, the Update PAYEVNT does not pull the updated data into the file.
Allowances
Will display all reportable allowances employee has received within the financial year.
Lookup Table: ALLOWANCES
Deductions
Will display all reportable deductions employee has received within the financial year.
Lookup Table: DEDUCTIONS
Paid Leave
Will display all paid leave as itemised for STP that employee has received within the financial year.
Lookup Table: PAIDLEAVE
Salary Sacrifice
Will display YTD amounts for Superannuation or Other employee benefits that are salary sacrificed for the individual.
Lookup Table: SALSAC
ETP
If using Coins Employee Termination process any ETP payments will automatically be populated in this Tab. Multiple Terminations for employee will be shown on separate lines.
Lump Sum E
Amounts of back payment for wages that accrued more than 12 months. Each financial year and amount will be displayed.
FBT Amounts
If an employee’s total taxable amount for the FBT year (1st April to 31st March) exceeds $2,000.00, you must report the ‘grossed-up’ taxable value of the amount on the Income Statement. Do not report cents.
The FBT amount may be manually entered against the employee, or the bulk load facility can be used to update a selected group of employees.
📌Note: Create a Column Set to add ‘Fringe Benefits Amount’ field to Standard Column Set
📌Note: Once FBT amounts have been updated DO NOT run Generate Payment Summary – this will clear the amounts. COINS is not storing the FBT amounts.
FBT Manually Recorded
You can manually enter against the employee the fringe benefit amount in the Maintain PaySummary.
Open the individual employee record.
Record the Fringe Benefit Amount.
Save the record.
FBT Bulk Load
Coins has the ability to load fringe benefit amounts from a separate application, e.g. Microsoft Excel.
Select the Search and filter for 2024 YTD figures.
Only the current year should be visible.
Select all records.
Select Bulk
The box is highlighted blue
Select Open
A new window opens, and the export.xml opens at the bottom of the screen.
Open the Excel export.xml document.
Enter a Fringe Benefits Amount against relevant employees.
Highlight the entire Excel document by clicking the Select All button and copying the data.
Paste the copied data from the Excel spreadsheet into the open box.
Click Save
FBT amounts are now loaded against the employee’s individual record.
Recording ETP Amounts
COINS has the functionality to automatically record ETPs when the Termination process is used. A single ETP payment which contains both excluded and non-excluded payments can be recorded for an employee. When using the COINS Employee Termination process the excluded ETP is to be processed first followed by the non-excluded part. This will then create multiple ETP records on the Maintain PaySummary.
However, if the process is not used and timesheets are manually created for Employee Termination Payments, then additional ETP details need to be manually updated in Maintain PaySummary.
Employees may receive a combination of ETPs, i.e., R and O types. In this case, the second ETP may require to be entered manually entered against the employee.
As per the Single Touch Payroll rules for Lumps Sum A payments, when an employee leaves employment and receive a Lump Sum A payment and is rehired within the same financial year COINS recommends issuing a new Payroll ID to ensure that if there are additional Lump Sum A payments these can be reported accordingly. This will ensure one key identifier is different (payroll ID)
📌Note: If using COINS employee termination, it is recommended that changes are made on the employee Termination if incorrect code reported. If amounts are incorrect an adjusting pay run must be completed.
Manual Additional ETP Records
In Maintain PaySummary, select the employee who is to have the additional ETP record.
Open the record.
Navigate to the ETP Tab
Add the additional ETP date paid, amounts and type. The original ETP amounts may need an adjustment.
Click SAVE
STP Employee PaySum Report
Payroll > company Setup > AUS Tax Tables & PaySum > STP Employee Paysum Report
This will provide an output of all data in ‘Maintain PaySummary’ for all employees within the company by income type and can be used for reconciliation purposes.
Detail:
Selected - will provide a break down by employee showing individual Allowances and Deductions
Unselected – will provide report totals e.g. Gross, PAYG
📌Note: Run both options and open each report output in Excel.
Detail Unselected
The report will output totals for each employee. Using filters and sums within the report it will assist in reconciling YTD figures.
Use Sum to total column’s in excel to reconcile Tax, Gross, and other columns.
Lump Sum E and ETP records are broken up per reporting entry in the excel.
Detail Selected
The report will output individual employee allowances, deductions, and paid leave as per the disaggregation of payments for STP.
Using filters will allow extraction of specific payment types to assist in reconciliation.
The report will be broken up by employee ID (purple)
Then broken by STP Payment Type: Allowance / deduction / paid leave (green)
Within the reporting payment type it will be itemised by codes (yellow)
Finalisation – Update Event
An UPDATE event is only used in circumstances other than when the employee is paid. The UPDATE will report YTD amounts for Employees and does not report YTD for employer total amounts i.e. W1 and W2 amounts
The UPDATE for the finalisation event should use the last pay period of the financial year.
📌Note: The Update process reports employees within a pay frequency that is not across the whole company. Therefore, the finalisation process must be run for each pay frequency within each company.
⚠️Important: PR/STPMESSAGETYPE parameter needs to be updated to the value update.004.00
If you fail to change the parameter prior to generating the update, the file fails, and the report output displays an error.
📌Note: Dates reported on the UPDATE event depend on reporting Current or Previous Financial years. The program refers to the Company Config Date and Year for the payroll frequency to establish which date to use.
Previous year uses – Period Maintenance > Period End Date
Current financial year uses – Period Maintenance > Cheque Date (Paid Date)
Payroll > [Pay Frequency] Payroll > Input > [Frequency] Generate STP Update Submission
Enter the financial Year for which you are generating the finalisation update.
The Period is the last period within a pay frequency for the financial year.
If generating an UPDATE event in the current financial year, use the last Period in Period Maintenance. (this can be adjusting or regular)
If generating an UPDATE event for a previous financial year, use the last Period for that financial year. (this can be adjusting or regular)
This process automatically runs the process Generate PaySummary to calculate the YTD values for all employees.
⚠️Important: Values manually entered into Maintain PaySummary for FBT and ETPs are not overridden when the UPDATE is generated.
Open the STP Workbench and select a file to validate; ensure there are no errors.
Run the STP Payment Summary Report can assist with in house reconciliation of Year-to-Date amounts.
Payroll > Company Reports > STP Payment Summary Report
The report provides Year to Date Amounts for employees for the full year.
The PAYEVNT file must be ‘Validated’ to ensure YTD amounts are populated.
Run the Historical Earning and Deductions Report.
The report outlines in detail by employee the pay code for the period and identify the STP field assigned.
Payroll > Company Reports > Historical Earnings and Deductions Report
📌Note: This will exclude ETP records paid throughout the year as this would not be processed in period.
Once reconciled, select the file in the STP Workbench and select the action Finalise.
A new window opens; click NEXT.
The file is updated with a Status of Finalised, and the Final column has a Yes value.
This process creates a report output; ensure it is completed before submitting the file.
Select a file to submit the Update Event
Tick the declaration and click NEXT.
Once submitted, the Status changes to Submitted, and Final remains as Yes.
Run the Pull ATO Submission Responses Report in Company Reports to review the ATO messages and the status of the submission. (Refer STP Manual for the Pull ATO Submission Report)
The Pull ATO Submission Responses Report produces a report output which must return a Message of COMPLETED.
If there are no errors, the file has successfully transmitted to the ATO, and the STP Workbench displays the status as COMPLETED.
The PAYEVNT contains a line to indicate that this is the final pay event submitted for the year, and ATO updates employee online details.
⚠️Important: Once that status COMPLETED has been returned, before any new pays are processed for the new financial year, please ensure parameter PR/STPMESSAGETYPE is returned to SUBMIT.004.00
Amendments after Finalisation
Where the need for an amendment is identified, you have 14 days to report the amendment. The employee’s MyGov Income Statement will be changed with the amended information.
Income Statement amendments to correct employees YTD Amounts must be reported via an update action. The Update action Pay/Update Date will be as follows:
Prior financial year update – where the finalised Income Statement to be amended is for a prior financial year. The Date must be 30 June for the financial year to which the amendment refers.
Current financial year update – where the finalised Income Statement to be amended is for the current financial year. The Pay/Update Date must be as-at the generation of the update action.
If the employee has already lodged their income tax return using the previous finalised information, the ATO may issue an amended assessment to the payee.
Where the employer believes previously finalised employee record needs to be amended, they should notify of this as soon as possible. This is due to previously finalised amounts being made available as pre-fill amounts in the employee income tax return.
Where the employer has identified a need to amend a previously finalised employee record but is not in a position to provide final details (within the next 14 days), the employer should provide the same income details with the final event indicator set to FALSE, via an update action. This will change the status of the previously notified final information from tax ready to not tax ready, to ensure the employee does not use this incorrect information to lodge their tax return.
Employers can amend finalised data that has been reported through STP up to five years after the end of financial year using an update action.
If an employer is amending a prior financial year finalised Income Statement for employees where the key identifiers have changed (BMS Id), then use the Update action Previous BMS Identifier to reference their original finalised records.
Overpayment relates to a previous financial year
The overpayment must be reported within 14 days from when the error was detected.
If an employee has been overpaid in a previous financial year and only discover the overpayment in a later year, submit an UPDATE event to advise the ATO the amounts the employee should have received in the relevant financial year. Do not adjust the amount of tax withheld.
An update event for each financial year the overpayment occurred must be submitted.
If the overpayment relates to a payment that was not reported through STP the employee must be provided with an amended payment summary and an amended payment summary annual report submitted to the ATO.
Amending Finalise Pay Event 2018 via Pay Event 2020 Update Action
You cannot amend a prior financial year finalised Income Statement that was finalised via the pay event 2018 service before 01/10/2020.
Amending pay events using the pay event 2020 service, which were finalised via the pay event 2018 service for payments made before 1/07/2020, must report by Income Stream Collection.
To allow you to amend or update data reported through STP via the update event 2020 service for payments prior to 01/07/2020 then the following rules apply:
Child support Garnishee cannot be supplied.
Child support Deductions cannot be supplied.
Payee Commencement date is not mandatory
Payee Cessation date is not mandatory
Employment Basis code is not mandatory
Country code is not mandatory
Tax Treatment code is mandatory but should be reported as at run date/time stamp of the Update action.
If the payer is unable to provide the data in line with the Income Stream Collection, then they must use the Update 2018 service to amend the finalised Income Statement.
Unfinalise
⚠️Important: Parameter PR/STPMESSAGETYPE must equal UPDATE.004.00 for this
If a finalised file has been sent to the ATO and an amendment is required to an employee record (this could be one employee, a number of employees, or all employees), you are required to create amendments to the Year-to-Date Figures.
Payroll > [Pay Frequency] Payroll > Input > [Frequency] Generate STP Update Submission
Enter the financial Year in which you are generating the finalisation update.
The Period is the last period within the financial year that you are reporting.
On the Employee Selection tab, select the employee/s for which the amendment is being done, i.e., single employee, group, or * for all employees.
The STP Workbench displays the new PAYEVNT. Note the number of employees in the Comments column.
Click the Period hyperlink to check for employees in the file.
In the STP Workbench, select a file to validate.
Review the report output to ensure there are no errors.
Select the file in the STP Workbench and then select the Finalise action.
A new window opens.
The file is updated with a Status of Finalised, and the Final column has a yes value.
This sets the final indicator to True
Select the file in the STP Workbench, and then select the Unfinalise
action.A new window opens.
The file is updated with a Status of Unsubmitted, and the Final column has a No value.
This sets the final indicator as False
Select a file to submit the Update event
Tick the declaration and click NEXT.
Once submitted, the Status changes to Submitted, and the Final column is set to No.
Run the Pull ATO Submission Responses Report in Company Reports to review the ATO messages and the submission status.
The Pull ATO Submission Responses produces a report output which must return a Message of COMPLETED.
The PAYEVNT file has the Final indicator for the selected employee set to FALSE.
Sample of file below:
<tns:RemunerationPayrollEventFinalI>false</tns:RemunerationPayrollEventFinalI>
Amendments to employee Year to Date record can now be made either through a new pay run or if updating via Maintain PaySummary.
📌Note: Values manually entered into Maintain PaySummary for FBT and ETPs are not overridden when the UPDATE is generated.
Once amendments are made, a finalise update PAYEVNT must be lodged for the selected employee/s.
⚠️Important: Parameter PR/STPMESSAGETYPE must equal UPDATE.004.00 for this
Unfinalise Summary
Create update event for selected employee/s
PAYEVNT Action validate
PAYEVNT Action finalise (Sets flag to ‘true’)
PAYEVNT Action Unfinalise (Sets flag to ‘false’)
PAYEVNT Action submit
Make changes to YTD amounts and reconcile
Create update event for selected employee/s
PAYEVNT Action validate
PAYEVNT Action finalise (Sets flag back to ‘true’)
PAYEVNT Action Submit
⚠️Warning: You must Finalise the pay event so the indicator is set to TRUE. You then need to Unfinalise to reset the indicator to FALSE. If you Unfinalise the pay event before it has been finalised and try to submit, you receive the error below.
Prepare for New Financial Year
Coins does not have a specific end of month or end of year rollover process. When a Period Maintenance is defined for a pay frequency, the financial period and tax year are set. Each period is updating the payroll month/year corresponding to MTD/YTD totals.
Payroll Global Parameters
The following parameters require updating for the next financial year.
Payroll > Global Setup > Parameters
PRYEARS
A comma separated list of years available for timesheet entry.
STPMAXQE
Stores the Maximum Contribution Base (MCB) for Qualified Earnings. This is the base for calculating super by the ATO. This should be the annual limit amounts.
PR-ETP-MAXAMOUNT
ETP whole of income cap amount.
PR-ETP-MAXUNTAXED
ETP indexed cap amount.
PR-FLATTAX
Stores the tax flat rate % to be defaulted for an employee. A comma separated list:
Resident no TFN 47%; Foreign resident no TFN 45%; Back Pay max rate 47%.
Pay Frequency Parameters
The following parameters should be reviewed to ensure you have the correct rates for Child Support Protected Earnings. This are usually update in January each year.
The parameters are held within the pay frequencies as each frequency holds a varied amount.
Payroll > [Frequency] Payroll > Setup > Parameters
PR-MAXIMUM-GROSS
Used in Missing Timesheet report to report if employees exceed this amount. (Capture overpayments)
PR-MINIMUM-NET
Used in Missing Timesheet report and by the CHILD Support Pay Calculation, holds the Protected Earning amount as set by Department of Human Services.
Weekly
Monthly
Tax Table Updates
Update the new tax scales before the first pay run of the new financial year.
Fixed Tax Variation Rates
For continued eligibility for a fixed tax rate percentage, the staff member must provide written authorisation from the ATO on an annual basis.
The fixed rate is based on ALL salary and Wages it is recorded against the employee on the Employee Maintenance form, Tax Authority Details tab, Flat Rate Tax field.
If an employee has not provided an authorisation from the ATO for the new financial year, then the rate must be reset to zero.
Employee Variation Tax Details
For employee to have continued eligibility for fixed tax rate % or amounts based on specific earning categories, the employee must provide written authorisation from the ATO on an annual basis.
If the fixed rate is based on specific earning categories and not on whole salary and wages, then this is recorded on the Employee Variation Tax Details.
The earning categories should only be configured to be effective for a financial year so ensure these records are made dormant.
Update the Super Capping (MCB)
The maximum contribution base (MCB) is the upper cap of earnings on which an employer must pay the minimum amount of super guarantee (SG). With the introduction of SuperPay from 1/07/2026 this rate should be recorded against the Per Year field.
Update SUPG pay calculations master record with new rate. This will be applied to any NEW employee pay calculations going forward. Updating the SUPG master does not automatically update the employee existing records.
Therefore, you must update all employees who have capping applied by creating a new SUPG record with new capped amount before 1st payrun is processed in new Year.
This can be achieved by using the ‘Load employee pay calculations’.
⚠️Warning: Failure to update the MCB rate on employee SUPG record before the 1st payrun in new year may result in inaccurate SUPG capping by Coins during calculations.
Payroll Tax Update
Before processing the first pay run, review the Payroll Tax Rates, as these may need updating or may change. The below website can assist you:
Payroll > Company Setup > Oncost % configuration
Copy the previous year or add a new record.
Select the State you need to update.
Click Copy.
Confirm Taxing Authority is the State you wish to update, then click Next.
Enter a new effective date, i.e., 01/07/2024.
Update the Min Amount over which Payroll Tax is Applicable with a new threshold. (if it was set previously)
Update the Payroll Tax %.
Click Save.
