WHAT IS SINGLE TOUCH PAYROLL

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Posted March 25, 2019

Salon owners beware, Single Touch Payroll is coming whether you’re ready or not!

Single Touch Payroll is the biggest shake up for business owners single the introduction of compulsory superannuation payments in 1992. It regulates the payment of superannuation and ensures that all businesses are correctly paying their staff and their superannuation – but it also involves huge changes for salon owners in order to stay compliant.

Single Touch Payroll changes the way that all wages, superannuation, bonuses and PAYG information is shared with the tax office. Previously, businesses would report into the ATO once a year – at tax time. All salon owners know what a pain this process is, lodging group certificates and calculating different wage rates and payments, often for staff who are no longer even working for your salon. With Single Touch Payroll, now you need to send this report DAILY – and it has to be done digitally using the ATO system which is less than user-friendly. But unfortunately, it is going to be the law soon enough.

This system came into effect for salon owners with more than 20 staff on July 1^st of 2018, but the biggest change will come on July 1^st 2019 when ALL businesses need to roll over to the new Single Touch Payroll System. Previously, you would finalise your payroll records and produce a payment summary annual report on the business for the ATO and a Group Certificate for each of your staff. Now using the Single Touch Payroll system, these two reports will no longer need to be lodged – instead, a report needs to be sent DAILY to the Single Touch Payroll system, which unless you have the right system could take you serious time and money. Some digital services will be compliant with the Single Touch Payroll requirements, and some won’t be – that either means time switching to a new system or some teething issues after July 1st 2019. If you’re still using spreadsheets or even a pen and paper to lodge your reports, you will need to find a service to convert the data from your spreadsheet to a compliant report format and submit it on your behalf. This can be costly and difficult to do on your own, and you run the risk of not getting it right.