If you require an extension (below), you must request one from the ATO, see:

ATO Page: If you need more time

Based on a clarification from the ATO the following was changed on 26 May 2022.

Synergetic is compliant with the ATO requirements for STP 2 and an exemption for schools using Synergetic Payroll is in place to 30 June 2022.

What this means is, unless the ATO has granted a specific extension for your school, you will need to have upgraded and commenced using STP 2 (STP payevnt 2020) prior to your first pay in FY 23 (ie first pay post 30 June 2022).

• If you have not reported a pay using STP 2 in FY22 you can close out FY22 using original STP (STP payevnt 2018), 
• If you have reported a pay using STP 2 in FY22 you must close out FY22 using STP 2 (STP payevnt 2020), 

(Attend the Payroll End of Year Webinar for more information on closing out FY22.)

If this does not meet your school needs, then request an additional extension from the ATO.

Victorian Catholic Education Schools

If you are a Victorian Catholic Education school you need to speak with Catholic Education for clarification as to whether you should :

• upgrade to v70.16 and / or
• commence STP 2 submission in FY 22

There is no additional action required once you have your upgrade to STP 2 prior to continuing with STP 1 (STP payevnt 2018) pays,  We do recommend you check some pay records to establish your comfort level that all is well.

Prior to submitting your first  pay in STP 2 (STP payevnt 2020) you need to have completed the steps as outlined in the Webinars and on the Synergetic User Hub page: STP 2 - How to Guide for schools transferring to STP 2 

The Pay Date determines the "date" of the pay. If this is on or before 30/06/2022 then the pay is in FY 22.

The key changes are:

• For STP 2 “Payment Basis” has been renamed “Employment Basis”
• There are additional Employment Basis options to select including : Voluntary Agreement, Death Beneficiary and Non-Employee
• Pension / Annuity Payee however, is no longer an option so this has been set to inactive

A confirmation message will populate where a change made on the Declarations tab requires an update to the Tax tab

You will still need to set the record to Ready to Send for it to be included in the STP submission file.

No, the Tax Declaration is a record of what is provided on the Payees Tax Declaration form, and needs to reflect the form as it is submitted.

Income Statements are available to your employees via their MyGov account.

The Print PAYG Summaries process still exists in Synergetic however they are no longer an official document.

Yes, the upgrade applies a default Income Stream of Salary and Wages to all taxable pay codes.  Where you have another Income Stream, this will need to be checked manually.

Synergetic v70.16 has been announced as the build for schools moving to Synergetic Payroll and/or transitioning to STP 2. You will need to log a support ticket to book in your upgrade via a Service Desk Ticket - Synergetic Service Desk

This page also has a url link to book your timeslot once you have logged your upgrade support ticket.

The information on when, where and how to book upgrades has been released via email, on discourse and STP2 webinars.

The STP 2 v70.16 upgrade takes around 3 hours.

Usual practice is to create two tickets, one for test and one for production. Synergetic suggests schools upgrade their test database a couple of weeks prior production.

We suggest you always request your test instance is upgraded to keep your production and test instances to remain in sync.

The aim of the Webinars is to provide sufficient information so that you can plan your configurations

We started the upgrade process as soon as we received ATO White List approval and confirmed v70.16 was the build for schools using Synergetic Payroll. 

We have been recommending that you book in for your upgrade as early as possible after you receive the notification

Review the information from the ATO : https://www.ato.gov.au/Business/Single-Touch-Payroll/Expanding-Single-Touch-Payroll-(Phase-2)/

Engage with our STP 2 webinar series, we are here to help : https://educationhorizons.arlo.co/w/courses/74-synergetic-stp-2

Check you have SQL2016 (required for v70.16)

Lock in your date to upgrade as early as possible

In relation to your pay codes, consider :

• Do any pay codes need to be set with a different income stream from Salaries & Wages
• Which pay codes will need to a different reporting category

In relation to employees, review :

• the termination reason recorded for any employee terminated in FY2022

We have written a User Hub article on tax scales:   STP 2 - Tax Scales

We have also produced an explanatory video : Tax Scales Video by Graham Kidd

Tax scales are updated by the upgrade process.  We recommend doing some visual checks.  This will also help you understand the new tax scales.

The Lookup table  luPayrollTaxationRate includes the old tax rates as well as the new tax rates, you will be able to use this as a guide when comparing pre and post upgrade tax rates.

You can also use the Highlight Pay Variations when running the payroll journal listing report to show where variations have occurred

Any Payee who salary sacrifices super and was Tax Scale 1 with HELP, or Tax Scale 2 with HELP and is now RNSX or RTSX will have a reduced Tax amount.

This is because:

Tax Scale 1 with HELP, or Tax Scale 2 with HELP calculated Tax based on income less salary sacrificed super, and HELP on the full income (ie not less salary sacrificed super)

the new four character based Tax Scales calculates Tax and HELP based on income less salary sacrificed super.

eg 'Tax Scale 2 with HELP' pre STP 2 calculates Tax based on income less salary sacrificed super and HELP based on full income

income                                =   $3,000
salary sacrificed super         = - $500
tax calculated on $2,500     =   $598
HELP calculated on $3,000  =   $150
Total Tax                               =   $648

eg 'Tax Scale 2 RTSX - STP 2 calculates Tax and HELP based on income less salary sacrificed super

income                                =    $3,000
salary sacrificed super         = - $500
tax calculated on $2,5000    =   $498
HELP calculated on $2,500  =    $88
Total Tax                               =   $586

Note: Tax Scales S1 and S2 are not affected as these incorporate HELP payment. They have always calculated on the reduced gross amount and will return an exact match with RNSX and RTSX respectively.

Explanatory Video

TaxCalcVariationExplained.wmv

The key to answering this question is not a Synergetic based one.  Ensure you understand STP 2 from the ATO perspective, know what they are expecting to be reported in what way.

With this understanding you can ensure that your pay codes are configured to support that reporting.  This will allow you to look at the changes we have made and understand what you need to confirm and configure with your pay codes.

We have written the STP 2 - How to Guide for schools transferring to STP 2 to support you in this.

You can also run the Crystal Report Payroll Code Listing (PAYCODELISTING) to assist in this process.

Our understanding is paid leave needs to be reported to the ATO as leave. We recommend that if you have questions on understanding the ATO requirement to report paid leave you ask the ATO directly.

Once you have a clear understanding of your situation and how the ATO interprets it, we are fully able to help with your questions regarding the mechanics of reporting paid leave via STP 2.

Yes, the Leave functionality has not changed with STP 2 you are still able to link your leave pay codes to a leave code.

The additional step in STP 2 is when recording paid leave you will need to add a Paid Leave Type

Yes.  The actual pay and STP process has not substantially changed for STP 2, so these types of adjustments or fixes in next pay are still the same as per STP.

Under STP the amount paid against a leave Pay Code was not separated, under STP 2 the paid leave type and the amount paid are reported separately.

In the following scenario the employee has taken some paid leave the first screen shot is the STP File generated under STP1

Scenario

The employee receives 152 hrs of pay per month. In this pay she has taken 5 hours of annual leave.

The hours on Pay Code NTEACH2 are reduced by the hours of annual leave

The annual leave hours are recorded using Pay Code NANNUAL

The same pay rate is applied to both payment lines

Under STP the amount of leave paid is not reflected in the STP submission.

Under STP 2 the amount of leave paid and the type of leave are reported in the STP submission 

If you are not maintaining leave entitlements in Synergetic your leave Pay Codes will not be linked to a leave code.

With STP 2 when a Paid Leave Pay Code is applied the user will be prompted to confirm the Paid Leave Type (see the list below). If a Default Paid Leave Type has been set in the Pay Code the user has the option to change this record when applying the Pay Code to a current pay

Leave taken is usually recorded in a current pay with a Rate and Units 

If you receive the validation:

but your payee has no Paid Leave Pay Line in this pay, check all previous Pays for a Pay Line with Pay Code with Reporting Category of Paid Leave and ensure these Pay Lines have a Paid Leave type.

Note:  this applies for all submissions, not just pays.

Salary Sacrifice is either Salary Sacrifice - Super or Salary Sacrifice - Other.  There is a Reporting Category for each.

The Upgrade will update the Reporting Category from Individual - Gross using the Pay Code Type to determine whether the new Reporting Category should be Salary Sacrifice - Super and RESC or Salary Sacrifice - Other.

Yes.  You need to be able to complete the fields on Payroll > Payroll Employee Maintenance > Tax

Where an employee has a Medicare Levy Surcharge or Medicare Levy Reduction they will need to provide you with the information. There is a form which employees can complete and submit to your payroll officer under : Medicare levy variation declaration | Australian Taxation Office (ato.gov.au)  (as at 19/5/2022)

This is not something we have addressed to date.

This is something your Sys Admin will be able to answer for you.

STP 2 does not change the Finalise Payroll or Process STP

An update to Staff Kiosk is not part of the STP 2 update project

Professional Services Finance Specialist Consultants will be available to assist schools with the transition to STP 2.

Please log a Consulting Services ticket and one of our team will be in touch. This will be a paid engagement.

The ATO requires that for ETP payments there must be both a Taxable component and a Withholding component reported.

If not one of these errors will be encountered:

• When Payee Total ETP PAYGW Amount is provided, Payee Termination Payment Taxable Component must be provided
• When Payee Termination Payment Taxable Component is greater than 0, Payee Total ETP PAYGW Amount must be 0 or greater than 0

To satisfy the ATO requirement and not receive the relevant error, the two components must be paid on the same date and for the same ETP reason.

eg:

BAD as the dates are different for the same ETP reason, each one fails the rule
19/12/2021 - ETP reason = T - ETP Taxable component $2000
01/06/2021 - ETP reason = T - ETP Withheld component $0

BAD as the dates are the same but the ETP reason is different, each one fails the rule
19/12/2021 - ETP reason = T - ETP Taxable component $2000
19/12/2021 - ETP reason = R - ETP Withheld component $0

GOOD as the dates and the ETP reason are the same
19/12/2021- ETP reason = T - ETP Taxable component $2000
19/12/2021- ETP reason = T - ETP Withheld component $0

ETP Reason