My BAS prefill balances from my STP submissions are incorrect - What do I do?

KB ID: STP001

I have just submitted the same payrun to the ATO twice, sent an update event or missed a payrun before creating a new one. However my BAS prefill balances don't match my payroll, why is that and what do I do?

Since the start of STP in 2018, there are two things included when you send a submission; Employer Data & Employee Data
  • Employer Data includes a total gross and total PAYG for the pay run itself and is not a YTD balance. This is the data that the ATO has now started using to pre-fill the W1 and W2 fields in the BAS.
  • Employee Data includes the Year to Date (YTD) breakdown of the employee’s pays which is used for completing their Income Statement.

Previously, you could miss a submission and then submit the next pay when it occurs, and the employee YTD balances would update & be correct.

Now that STP has been expanded and STP Phase 2 has taken effect, the ATO will pre-fill W1 and W2 using employer data (total gross & PAYG). Employer Data is not reported as YTD values.

Instead, it is a total of that specific pay run, which means it will impact pre-fill balances in the event you send through the same submission multiple times, miss a submission, or a submission results in an error.

What do I do?

An update event doesn't have any employer component in the submission so it only adjusts employee data. This means when you send an Update Event to reflect changes to employee balances it adjusts employee data only - this is why it only shows that an entry has been received in the ATO Portal but doesn't show any detail.

If the ATO's pre-fill balances for BAS are incorrect, its recommended to manually edit the W1 & W2 fields in the ATO Portal to correct the balances to what they should be.

The W1 & W2 fields in the ATO Portal are editable and can be manually corrected if they're showing incorrect pre-fill balances.

The ATO has created a short guide on checking and modifying pre-fill data. You can review this here: https://www.ato.gov.au/businesses-and-organisations/hiring-and-paying-your-workers/single-touch-payroll/ato-payg-withholding-pre-fill-for-activity-statements .
Please note: As this is not in the confines of Reckon, we cannot advise directly on best practices. In this case, if you are having difficulties, we recommend reaching out to your accountant or bookkeeper to assist.

Need an accountant or bookkeeper? You can reach out to our friendly professional and accredited consultants and bookkeepers here: https://partnersearch.reckon.com/

Need further assistance? You can reach out to us on the Reckon Community here: https://community.reckon.com/

How did we do?

Single Touch Payroll Phase 2 Overview

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