Reconcile Payroll and STP Data
As a part of your STP finalisation process, you should reconcile your payroll and STP data. This step is important as it helps you keep accurate accounting records and ensures that the data you're sending to the ATO matches your payroll data.
In this article we will cover:
- Running your reports
- Reconciling gross wages
- Reconciling PAYG withholding
- Reconciling superannuation
- What to do if you find a discrepancy
Refer to the Troubleshooting STP article for information what discrepancies you can resolve yourself!
To reconcile your data, you will need to run 2 reports:
-
- Advanced Payroll Activity Report
- STP Report
Both reports can be found by navigating to Reports > Financial.
Advanced Payroll Activity Report
To produce the APAR report:
- Set your duration to 'Last Financial Year' (assuming you run this report after June 30).
- Group by Paying Entity & Employee ID (in that order).
- To the right, select the following checkboxes:
- Cash Basis
- Split Deductions
- Display Non-Reported STP Amount Separately
- Separate Superannuation Contribution Types
- Select Submit.
- Export CSV.
STP Report
To produce the STP report:
- Select 'Last Financial Year' as your timeframe (assuming you are running this report after June 30).
- Select Create Report.
- Select Export > YTD Summary.
To reconcile your gross wages, you'll need to calculate various columns of data in both the Advanced Payroll Activity Report and the STP Report and confirm that your calculated totals match.
If your totals for each report do not match, please refer to the troubleshooting section below for the next steps.
Gross wages (payroll data) = Gross wages (STP data)
The table below identifies which columns must be included in your calculation to determine each report's total. The two columns on the left are for the Advanced Payroll Activity Report and should be calculated separately. The two columns on the right are for the STP Report and should be calculated separately.
| Advanced Payroll Activity Report | STP Report | |||
| Gross Wages | Exempt foreign income | |||
| - | Non-STP Reported Total | + | Gross | |
| = | Gross wages (payroll data) | + | Overtime | |
| + | Bonuses and commissions | |||
| + | Directors fees | |||
| + | Other paid leave | |||
| + | Paid parental leave | |||
| + | Workers compensation | |||
| + | Ancillary and defence leave | |||
| + | Cash out of leave in service | |||
| + | Unused leave on termination | |||
| + | Cents per kilometre | |||
| + | Award transport allowance | |||
| + | Laundry allowance | |||
| + | Overtime meal allowance | |||
| + | Travel and overseas accommodation allowance | |||
| + | Tool allowance | |||
| + | Task allowance | |||
| + | Qualification allowance | |||
| + | Other: Non-deductible | |||
| + | Other: Uniform | |||
| + | Other: Private vehicle | |||
| + | Other: Home office | |||
| + | Other: Transport/Fares | |||
| + | Other: General | |||
| + | Lump sum A: Type R | |||
| + | Lump sum A: Type T | |||
| + | Lump sum B | |||
| + | Lump sum D | |||
| + | Lump sum E | |||
| + | Lump sum W | |||
| + | ETP type O: Tax free | |||
| + | ETP type O: Taxable | |||
| + | ETP type R: Tax free | |||
| + | ETP type R: Taxable | |||
| + | ETP type S: Tax free | |||
| + | ETP type S: Taxable | |||
| + | ETP type P: Tax free | |||
| + | ETP type P: Taxable | |||
| + | ETP type D: Tax free | |||
| + | ETP type D: Taxable | |||
| + | ETP type B: Tax free | |||
| + | ETP type B: Taxable | |||
| + | ETP type N: Tax free | |||
| + | ETP type N: Taxable | |||
| + | ETP type T: Tax free | |||
| + | ETP type T: Taxable | |||
| = | Gross wages (STP data) |
To reconcile your PAYG withholding, you'll need to calculate various columns of data in both the Advanced Payroll Activity Report and the STP Report and confirm that your calculated totals match.
If your totals for each report do not match, please refer to the troubleshooting section below for the next steps.
PAYG Withholding (payroll data) = PAYG Withholding (STP data)
The table below identifies which columns need to be included in your calculation to work out the total for each report. The 2 columns on the left are for the Advanced Payroll Activity Report and should be calculated separately. The 2 columns on the right are for the STP Report and should be calculated separately.
| Advanced Payroll Activity Report | STP Report | |||
| PAYG Withholding | PAYGW | |||
| = | PAYG Withholding (payroll data) | + | ETP type O: Tax | |
| + | ETP type R: Tax | |||
| + | ETP type S: Tax | |||
| + | ETP type P: Tax | |||
| + | ETP type D: Tax | |||
| + | ETP type B: Tax | |||
| + | ETP type N: Tax | |||
| + | ETP type T: Tax | |||
| = | PAYG Withholding (STP data) |
To reconcile your superannuation, you'll need to calculate various columns of data in both the Advanced Payroll Activity Report and the STP report and confirm that your calculated totals match.
If your totals for each report do not match, please refer to the troubleshooting section below for the next steps.
Superannuation (payroll data) = Superannuation (STP data)
The table below identifies which columns need to be included in your calculation to work out the total for each report. The 2 columns on the left are for the Advanced Payroll Activity Report and should be calculated separately. The 2 columns on the right are for the STP Report and should be calculated separately.
| Advanced Payroll Activity Report | STP Report | |||
| Super Guarantee | Super liability | |||
| + | Salary Sacrifice | + | RESC | |
| + | Employer Additional Super Contribution | = | Superannuation (STP data) | |
| = | Superannuation (payroll data) |
Additional Processes
Outside of reconciling your values, it is also a good idea to ensure that you are reporting payroll items correctly. The items that are worth checking are the ones that are customsiable. These include:
- Leave entitlements
- Deductions
- Pay items & Allowances
These items can be checked before your reconciliation process which will give you the confidence that you are reconciling correct data.
You can simply review the respective menus for leave entitlements and deductions. However, for allowances, it is recommended that you refer to the Pay Item and Allowance schedule, as this will save you a lot of time.
While your reconciliation may balance, some employees may have 2 income types recorded. There are instances where this is OK, but most of the time, it has been done in error.
The following steps outline how to identify employees with 2 income types. Once you have identified these, you can decide whether this is accurate or needs to be resolved.
To identify employees with multiple income types:
- Navigate to Reports > Financial and open the Advanced Payroll Activity Report.
-
Run the payroll report with the following settings:
- Set your duration to 'Last Financial Year' (assuming you run this report after June 30).
- Group by Employee ID & Income Type.
- To the right, select the 'cash basis' checkbox.
- Run the report and Export to CSV.
- Open the CSV and locate duplicate employee IDs.
- In Excel, highlight the Employee ID column.
- Apply Conditional Formatting to Highlight Duplicate Values.
- You can optionally filter your data and the highlighted cells.
- The highlighted (duplicated) cells are employees with WHM & SAW data recorded.
If you determine that any employees with 2 income types are in error, this can be rectified from the employee profile. Please refer to this article for instructions on how to resolve this.
If your payroll and STP data are not reconciling, please follow the process below.
- Determine what is incorrect. Is the data in the Advanced Payroll Activity or the STP data correct?
- Determine which employees' data is wrong.
- Determine which payslips are causing the discrepancy.
- Determine which line items are causing the discrepancy.
- The Advanced Payroll Activity Report with additional groupings of Line Item and Payslip will help to identify this.
- The STP Report, looking at the line item data for the employee, is another good option for investigating discrepancies on an employee-by-employee basis.
- Once identified, determine whether it's something you can resolve yourself or require assistance with.
This article has information on resolving the most common issues encountered.
Requesting assistance
When requesting assistance from support with a reconciliation discrepancy, please include details of the discrepancy you have identified and relevant supporting details such as:
- Your spreadsheets with workings
- Confirmation of what value is correct and what is incorrect (payroll report or STP)
- Details of each employee with the affected payslips or line items
Including all the required information will mean the support team can investigate your query sooner.