End of financial year payroll considerations

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As an employer, you are required to provide PAYG Summaries to your employees by July 14th. They must then be lodged electronically with the ATO via the Business Portal, BAS Agent Portal, Tax Agent Portal or SBR provider by August 14th. With so much going on at that time of the year, it can be prudent to do a bit of advance housekeeping of your payroll records during June, to avoid any last minute issues once the financial year ends. This is particularly important for MYOB users, who will not be able to process payroll in the new financial year until the last payroll year is closed off. Once this is done, you will be unable to edit 2013-2014 payroll entries, so it is essential that your payroll records are correct before this occurs.

  1. Check your employee details are correct

Update contact details, and ensure Tax File Numbers are recorded.

  1. Cross-reference your payroll data

Run a Payroll report, and a Profit and Loss report for the financial year to date. Compare the amount of gross wages recorded with the amount of Wages & Salaries reported on the P&L. These should be the same. Check that the PAYG Withholding amount agrees with what has been paid to the ATO. The June BAS provides an opportunity to adjust these balances.

  1. Investigate discrepancies

Reimbursements paid to employees through payroll may show up on the Payroll report, but may not accrue to Wages & Salaries Manual entries made against an employee but not through the Payroll function may not accrue to Wages & Salaries

  1. Speak to your accountant

Check whether you are liable to report FBT amounts

  1. Employee entitlements

Ensure any unused employee entitlements such as annual leave and personal care leave are flagged to carry over to the next year.

  1. Do a dummy run of PAYG Summaries (still referred to as Group Certificates by some)

Check amounts against Payroll Report Ensure the any Salary Sacrifice made for an employee is showing as RESC (Reportable Employer Super Contributions)   If you do identify issues that you are unable to resolve without professional help, this housekeeping will give you the opportunity to find suitable assistance before the EOFY rush.

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