EOFY Single Touch Payroll (STP) Finalisation

This guide will assist you through the EOFY Single Touch Payroll (STP) finalisation process.

When preparing for the new financial year, it's important to finalise your STP data and ensure that your employees are tax-ready.

Before finalising your STP data make sure you:

1. Review and update any data.
2. Process your employee's final pay as normal.
3. Review and reconcile your employee's STP data.

In this article, we will cover:

• Key steps before EOFY STP Finalisation
• STP 1 EOFY Finalisation process
• STP 2 EOFY Finalisation process
• After completing your STP Finalisation

  Check out the Your EOFY Timeline 2023 article! This article will step you through what you need to do to finalise the current financial year and prepare for the upcoming financial year.

Before Finalising

Key steps before STP Finalisation

Before processing your STP Finalisation you must ensure the following steps have been completed: 

1. Review and update any data i.e. ensure all relevant employees have been terminated & archived in their Employee Profile and check that all Allowances and Pay Items have the correct STP reporting category applied.
2. Process your final pay as normal.
3. Check your STP submissions and clear any backlogs. 
4. Complete your reconciliation. If you have not yet reconciled for the current financial year, please refer to the EOFY Reconciliation Guide.

Once you have processed your final pay and have reconciled for the current financial year, navigate to Payroll > Single Touch Payroll > STP Finalisation. Here you will see a list of your employees that have been paid for the financial year (including any employees that were terminated & archived) ready in the Pending tab for finalisation.

  If you are yet to complete the above, please refer to Your EOFY Timeline 2023 article to get yourself ready for the EOFY STP Finalisation step. 

STP 1 Finalisation Process

Check STP 1 submissions and clear backlog

Before finalising you will need to ensure all STP submissions have been submitted and cleared.

To check your STP 1 submissions and clear your backlog:

1. Navigate to Payroll > Single Touch Payroll and review the Require Action tab which will show all your outstanding submissions. If you have an outstanding submission, click View Details to review.
   
   

   

2. Review the pay data. Once you are satisfied, click Validate Data to submit to the ATO. This will move the submission into the Submitted tab.
   • STP packets in the submitted tab are in a queue with the ATO and will move to the Completed tab once approved.
3. If there are any errors with the submission, the STP packet will move into the Errors tab. You can view the error details here in the error tab.
   
   

   

STP 1 EOFY Finalisation

Once you have processed your final pay, completed your reconciliation and submitted all your outstanding STP submissions for the financial year, then select STP Finalisation.

You'll now see each step to be completed in the following tabs: 

1. Pending 2. Review 3. Finalise

In Pending, the current financial year will already be selected, however, you can choose the relevant financial year if needed.

You will see a list of all employees paid during the financial year, this includes all Approved, Terminated & Archived people that were paid.

To process your Pending employees to the Review stage: 

1. Select all employees or filter and review your employees per Office Code.
2. You will see the progress bar at the bottom of the page confirming how many employees you have selected. You can also adjust your page view to see more employees if needed.
3. Once you have selected your employees, select Review to move them to the next step (Review tab) of the finalisation. 
   
   
4. You will see an STP Finalisation Complete message. Visit the Review page to Finalise your data. 

Fringe Benefits (optional)

  Please ensure any Fringe Benefits amounts are imported prior to finalising STP.

If your business Imports Fringe Benefits at the end of each year, you will need to do the following:

1. Click on the Import Fringe Benefits link. This takes you to the CSV Import page. Here you can import your Fringe Benefit data.
   
   
2. Once you have imported your Fringe Benefit data return to Pay > Single Touch Payroll > STP Finalisation and ensure to refresh the page.
   
     Please note: You will need to submit the STP submissions that have been generated for those employees that you imported Fringe Benefits for, otherwise, they will appear as a warning in the Pending tab.

  See our Importing fringe benefits for employees article for more information. 

In Review, you'll be able to review and confirm your employees STP data before finalising your employees STP data.

If you would like to review your employees STP data again before finalising click the 'CSV' option against an employee to export the STP data for that employee.

Once you have reconciled, you're ready to send the data to the ATO for finalisation 'Finalise STP for all employees'.

To finalise STP for all employees:

1. Choose to finalise all employees or filter and finalise your employees per Office Code.
2. Select the 'I have reconciled my STP for 2022 - 2023 financial year' tick box.
3. Then select 'Finalise STP'.
   
   
4. You will see a pop-up asking you to declare that the information you are finalising is true and correct. Select the tick box to sign this declaration with your full name and select Submit. 
   
   
5. Your employees have now been finalised and will move to the 'Finalised' tab. Check the Finalised tab to confirm their status. 

In Finalised, you can notify your employees that their pay is finalised. See the 'Notifying employees of finalised EOFY payments section' below for steps on how to notify your employees of their EOFY year data being finalised.

  Please note: The ATO may require up to 72 hours to finalise their process before the 'Tax ready' status is updated in MyGov. When you first finalise your data the status will display as 'Waiting for ATO's response', once received and processed on the ATOs end it will show as 'Completed'.

  Tip: In the unlikely event that you encounter an STP error, please contact us at [e-mail]. This error has most likely occurred in the backend when sending data to the ATO and can be easily fixed up by foundU. foundU will also receive a notification and may be in touch for additional details to fix up the error. 

Key reminders when finalising:

• Through the process of reconciling you may create an STP submission that will need to be submitted. For example, when you create an adjustment to a payslip. When this occurs the employee that was previously in the Review step will be moved back to Pending. This ensures that you have fully reconciled the data for this employee by re-finalising the employee.
• A new STP submission can also occur if you make a change to an employee even if you have completed finalisation. In both scenarios, you'll need to submit the newly created STP submission and re-finalise the employee.

STP 2 Finalisation Process

Check STP 2 submissions and clear backlog

Before finalising you will need to ensure all STP submissions have been submitted and cleared.

  Please note: If you have transitioned to STP 2 during the current financial year it is recommended to navigate back to your 2022/23 STP 1 financial year to ensure all employees have been finalised.

A new STP submission may have occurred if you made a change to an employee even if you have completed your STP 1 finalisation. You'll need to submit these STP submissions and re-finalise any employees before completing your STP 2 finalisation.

To check your STP 2 submissions and clear your backlog:

1. Navigate to Payroll > Single Touch Payroll and review the Pending tab which will show all your outstanding submissions. If you have an outstanding submission, click Review.
   
   
2. Review the pay data. Once you are satisfied, click 'I declare that the information in this payroll event is true and correct and I am authorised to make this declaration' and select 'submit to the ATO'. This will move the submission into the Submitted tab.
   
   

STP 2 EOFY Finalisation

Once you have processed your final pay, completed your reconciliation and submitted all your outstanding STP submissions for the financial year, then select STP Finalisation.

You'll now see each step to be completed in the following tabs: 

1. Pending 2. Review 3. Finalise

In Pending, the current financial year will already be selected, however, you can choose the relevant financial year if needed.

You will see a list of all employees paid during the financial year, this includes all Approved, Terminated & Archived people that were paid.

To process your Pending employees to the Review stage: 

1. Select all employees or filter and review your employees per Office Code.
2. You will see the progress bar at the bottom of the page confirming how many employees you have selected. You can also adjust your page view to see more employees if needed.
3. Once you have selected your employees, select Review to move them to the next step (Review tab) of the finalisation. 
   
   
4. You will see an STP Finalisation Complete message. Visit the Review page to Finalise your data. 

Fringe Benefits (optional)

  Please ensure any Fringe Benefits amounts are imported prior to finalising STP.

If your business imports Fringe Benefits at the end of each year, you will need to do the following:

1. Click on the Import Fringe Benefits link. This takes you to the CSV Import page. Here you can import your Fringe Benefit data.
   
   
2. Once you have imported your Fringe Benefit data return to Pay > Single Touch Payroll > STP Finalisation and ensure to refresh the page.
   
     Please note: You will need to submit the STP submissions that have been generated for those employees that you imported Fringe Benefits for, otherwise, they will appear as a warning in the Pending tab.

  See our Importing fringe benefits for employees article for more information. 

In Review, you'll be able to review and confirm your employees STP data before finalising your employees STP data.

If you would like to review your employees STP data again before finalising click the 'CSV' option against an employee to export the STP data for that employee.

Once you have reconciled, you're ready to send the data to the ATO for finalisation 'Finalise STP for all employees'.

To finalise STP for all employees:

1. Choose to finalise all employees or filter and finalise your employees per Office Code.
2. Select the 'I have reconciled my STP for 2022 - 2023 financial year' tick box.
3. Then select 'Finalise STP'.
   
   
4. You will see a pop-up asking you to declare that the information you are finalising is true and correct. Select the tick box to sign this declaration with your full name and select Submit. 
   
   
5. Your employees have now been finalised and will move to the 'Finalised' tab. Check the Finalised tab to confirm their status. 

In Finalised, you can notify your employees that their pay is finalised. See the 'Notifying employees of finalised EOFY payments section' below for steps on how to notify your employees of their EOFY year data being finalised.

  Please note: The ATO may require up to 72 hours to finalise their process before the 'Tax ready' status is updated in MyGov. When you first finalise your data the status will display as 'Waiting for ATO's response', once received and processed on the ATOs end it will show as 'Completed'.

  Tip: In the unlikely event that you encounter an STP error, please contact us at [e-mail]. This error has most likely occurred in the backend when sending data to the ATO and can be easily fixed up by foundU. foundU will also receive a notification and may be in touch for additional details to fix up the error. 

Key reminders when finalising:

• If you have transitioned to STP 2 during the current financial year it is recommended to navigate back to your 2022/23 STP 1 financial year to ensure all employees have been finalised.
• Through the process of reconciling you may create an STP submission that will need to be submitted. For example, when you create an adjustment to a payslip. When this occurs the employee that was previously in the Review step will be moved back to Pending. This ensures that you have fully reconciled the data for this employee by re-finalising the employee.
• A new STP submission can also occur if you make a change to an employee even if you have completed finalisation. In both scenarios, you'll need to submit the newly created STP submission and re-finalise the employee.

After completing your STP Finalisation

Notifying employees of finalised EOFY payments

You can send an email to notify employees of their EOFY data being finalised. 

To notify your employees of their EOFY data being finalised: 

1. Select Email unnotified employees.
2. Select Confirm and send.

  Please note: You will not be able to notify previously notified employees.

If you would like to view or edit the email content, click Manage email content. This is a shortcut to the Employee Send PAYG communication template. Here you can edit the content of the email by turning 'Use Default Email Content' off. 

 

View previous EOFY STP Finalisation data

You can also view the data for previous financial years. 

To view previous financial years: 

1. Navigate to Payroll > Single Touch Payroll > STP Finalisation.
2. Select the down arrow next to the current financial year. 
   
   
3. Choose the relevant financial year to view previously finalised data. 

  Please note: If you do not have any data for that financial year you will see a 'No employees have been finalised' message for that financial year.