Table of Contents

STP Phase 2 - Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Best Practice

What is the recommended best practice regarding upgrading?
The recommended best practice is to:
- Finalise your last pay for the 2022/23 Financial Year
- Perform your year-end finalisation process in Reckon Accounts 2022
- Install/Open Reckon Accounts 2023
- Open your Company file in Reckon Accounts 2023 which will begin an upgrade of the file
- Update your employees and payroll items either manually, or by use the Migration Assistant before processing the first pay for the 2023/24 Financial Year
- Repeat for any additional Company files


End of the Financial Year process

Can you process your last pay for the 2022/23 Financial Year in Reckon Accounts 2023?
Yes.

From the 2023 version onwards, Reckon Accounts will support two financial year PAYG Tax Scales in the Payroll feature. PAYG Tax will be calculated for an employee using the previous and current tax scales based on the Payment Date.

See Multiple tax tables: Support for two financial year PAYG Tax Scales

Can you perform your year-end finalisation process in Reckon Accounts 2023?
Yes.

However, once the Company file is upgraded to Reckon Accounts 2023, any pays exported will be in STP Phase 2 format. It is highly recommended that the end of the year process for the 2022/23 Financial Year be performed in Reckon Accounts 2022.


Lodgement

Will Reckon GovConnect still be used for STP Lodgements?
Yes.

The submission process has not changed. Moreover, the Reckon GovConnect interface is updated to display detailed disaggregation of Gross in accordance to STP Phase 2 for ease of comparison.


Total Gross with Salary Sacrifice

How is Total Gross amount reported/handled with Salary Sacrifice in STP Phase 2?
Since the start of STP in 2018, we have been sending Employer Data as well as Employee Data via STP.
- Employer Data includes a Total Gross and Total PAYG for the pay run. This data is included so the ATO can prefill 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.

During the lodgment process, we display the Total Gross & PAYG that is being sent as part of the Employer information in the Export STP window as well as GovConnect so that users can see (and verify) the amounts that are going to be used by the ATO for the BAS Prefill.

- In STP Phase 1, Salary Sacrifice was linked to Gross Wages, so both the Employer and Employee Gross amounts would be the reduced Gross (after Salary Sacrifice).
- Under STP Phase 2, the Salary Sacrifice component has been disaggregated out of the Gross amount for the employee record ONLY. The Employer record will still show the balance of Total Gross AFTER Salary Sacrifice

With our initial release (released on 13 June 2023) we incorrectly removed the Salary Sacrifice amount from the Employer data, this meant that the Total Gross was now showing the pre-Salary Sacrificed amounts. This caused the BAS Prefill to be incorrect.

In the hotfix (released on 26 August 2023), we have now made the relevant change so that the Employer Data has the correct amount for BAS Prefill (the amount after Salary Sacrifice).


Update

Do you have to update your employees in order to submit STP Phase 2 data?
Yes.

It is mandatory to have certain data such as Income Type or the correct STP Tax Category for the employee to be reported correctly under STP Phase 2. These fields will be available within the employee record and need to be configured before processing any pays for the 2023/24 Financial Year. If they are not, your STP submission will fail.

Do you have to update your payroll items in order to submit STP Phase 2 data?
Yes.

It is required to have the Payroll Items configured on the correct Tax Tracking Type to be reported appropriately for the disaggregation of gross payments to the ATO. The updates would need to be performed before processing any pays for the Financial Year 2023/24.


Migration Assistant

Do you have to go through the STP Phase 2 Migration Assistant to configure your Employees and Payroll Items?
No.

The configuration can be performed manually, one-at-a-time, by editing the Employee record or Payroll Items. That said, we do recommend you utilise the Migration Assistant.

Will the STP Phase 2 Migration Assistant retrieve inactive employees or payroll items?
No.

Only active employees or payroll items are retrieved.

Can you stop the STP Phase 2 Migration Assistant halfway through the migration process?
Yes.

The assistant will save all your changes up to that point and is available when resuming the session.

Take note that the changes will not update the Company file Employee records or Payroll Items until the Complete STP Phase 2 Setup is selected from the Employee > STP Phase 2 Setup menu.

Does the STP Phase 2 Migration Assistant pushes back the data when it is done?
No.

Changes will be saved at each section but those changes would not be pushed automatically.

Users would have to select Complete STP Phase 2 Setup from the Employee > STP Phase 2 Setup menu.

Will I see newly added Employees or Payroll Items if I re-open the Migration Assistant?
No.

Employees and Payroll Items are exported from the Company file when starting the Migration Assistant for the first time. These data are static and would not reflect any updates from the Company file.

The Resume function would only continue the previous session displaying the previously saved data in the Migration Wizard.

Therefore, it is highly recommended to complete the migration process for the current data set first, then, start over a new session with the Migration Assistant using the Begin option to see the latest Reckon Accounts data.


How did we do?

STP Phase 2 - IIF changes for Export/Import

STP Phase 2 Migration Assistant

Related Articles

Additional STP Phase 2 checks
STP Phase 2 Migration Assistant
Single Touch Payroll Phase 2 Overview
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