Transitioning from another payroll system with STP

When you change to a new payroll system such as Accentis Enterprise during the financial year, you need to be aware of what that means for STP reporting. When you start on Accentis Enterprise, we load up the full YTD pay for each employee and report to the ATO their whole earnings for the year. If the prior payroll software has also been reporting this, then you will be reporting double, which is not correct.

Questions to ask yourself

If you have started to use Accentis Enterprise during the financial year, there are some things you need to consider with reporting STP:

  • Were you reporting STP through your prior payroll software?
  • If you were, are you using the same BMS-ID from the prior payroll software?
  • Did you migrate YTD (Year to Date) figures into Accentis Enterprise?

Choosing the process

So that STP reporting is correct for you and your employees, you must select from one of the following four options. It’s important that you report the correct figure so the employer does not lose entitlements or pay additional tax on income they did not earn.

Choose one of the below options:

Because you have been reporting STP already, you will have YTD figures in your prior payroll software. These need to be removed from your prior payroll software so that they are not reported more than once.

  • Import all the YTD figures for all active/inactive employees into Accentis Enterprise for an opening balance
  • In the prior payroll software:
    • Zero out the YTD figures from the old BMS ID
    • Lodge an update event to report this to the ATO
      • Make sure that you have selected “Mark as final” for each employee. This lets the ATO know that no more payments for these employees will be sent for this BMS ID
  • In Accentis Enterprise:
    • Lodge an update event to report the YTD totals to the new BMS ID
      • Lodging an update ensures that any terminated employees in the current financial year will lodge their YTD data, because they won’t show up in any “current” pay events you now lodge in Accentis Enterprise
How to clear the payroll Year-to-Date (YTD) figures from your Xero file

When transitioning from Xero to Accentis part way through a financial year, it may be necessary to clear the Year-to-Date (YTD) figures from your Xero file so that your STP reporting is correct.

The following steps show the overall process but not how to perform them in Xero – for that, you should talk to a Xero payroll expert. Please note that at any time, the process to do this within Xero may change so if you are uncertain of the exact steps, make sure you consult your Xero support team.

  • Run an unscheduled pay run for every person you have paid in the financial year through Xero
  • Enter minus figures to zero out the YTD figures
  • Check the payroll activity summary to make sure everyone has a nil balance
  • Lodge the STP

Once the STP has been lodged and the employees YTD figures are $0, you can run the STP finalisation event to finalise your payroll in Xero.

Please be aware that it can take a few days for this to populate into the employees' MyGov accounts

Because you haven’t been using STP to report payroll, the process is relatively simple:

  • Import all the YTD figures for all active/inactive employees into Accentis Enterprise for an opening balance
  • Create and lodge an STP update event
  • Continue to create and lodge STP events for each pay run

Because you have been reporting STP already, you will have YTD figures in your prior payroll software. These need to be migrated to Accentis Enterprise from your prior payroll software so you can use the BMS ID you have been using.

  • In Accentis Enterprise, change the BMS ID to the prior payroll software BMS ID
    • Accentis Enterprise auto-generates a BMS ID. To have this changed, please contact support.
  • Copy each employee’s payroll ID used in the prior payroll software to the Payee payroll ID field
  • Import all the YTD figures into Accentis Enterprise
  • You can either:
    • Lodge an update event from Accentis Enterprise to report the YTD totals imported; or
    • Wait until you lodge your first pay run in Accentis Enterprise as this will include the imported YTD values for the employees

Because you have been reporting STP already, you can’t use your prior payroll software’s YTD figures or BMS ID. You still need to update the ATO to let them know you’re not making any more payments to that BMS ID for any employees.

  • In the prior payroll software
    • Use the “Mark as final” for all employees when lodging the final pay run using that system’s BMS ID
  • In Accentis Enterprise
    • There is no need to import YTD earnings
    • You may need to import YTD figures for leave balances
    • There is no need to do an update event. You will be reporting STP from the first pay run that you perform, which will be the next consecutive pay period after the last one you reported in your old system

Last edit: 02/07/20