A Comprehensive Guide on Single Touch Payroll For Your Business in Australia

• Reading Time: 4 Minutes
• Published: December 4, 2021
• Last Updated: February 14, 2025

In less than a decade, Australia’s startup segment has taken a significant shift from an inconspicuous branch to the thriving hub of people & investment and made it one of the fastest-growing startup ecosystems in the world. According to a resource, approximately 58,796 construction businesses started in 2020. Its reasons could vary, but the critical factor for running a successful business is the knowledge & implementation of the essential practices required to run a business. Single touch payroll practice is one of them.

If you are running a small-sized enterprise in Australia, chances are you are aware of the single-touch payroll compliance by the Australian government. In today’s comprehensive guide on the single-touch payroll, we have included all the crucial aspects of STPs.

In This Article, You Will Find:

• What exactly is single-touch payroll?
• Who does it apply to?
• How is opting for STP practice beneficial for your business?
• What are the essential key factors to consider while choosing a payroll provider?

What is Single Touch Payroll?

Single touch payroll (STP) is an initiative by the Australian government to minimise the employer’s reporting burdens to the government. With STP, employers report to the government sector while paying salaries to employees through STP-enabled software. Payroll information includes:

• Salaries and wages
• Superannuation
• Pay as you go (PAYG) withholding

Who Does it Apply To?

Single touch payroll is a mandatory obligation by the Australian government for businesses with employees on a payroll basis. It was started on July 1, 2018, for employers with a team of 20 or more employees, and July 1, 2019, for employers with 19 or fewer employees.

STP enables you to conveniently report employees’ payroll information like wages, salaries, superannuation, PAYG withholding in no time.

How is Opting For STP Practice is Beneficial For Your Business?

Apart from being a mandatory obligation by the Australian government, single touch payroll benefits your businesses for the mentioned reasons-

1. Streamlines the Reporting Process

Payroll is a tedious task for small businesses, yet definitely an essential one. Like bookkeeping & accounting services, it is time-consuming and follows the steps from mapping timesheets to preparing employee payslips, salary, and superannuation. Employers have to report PAYG on a quarterly or monthly basis. Still, with the STP, employers can submit payroll information like wages and salaries, superannuation and PAYG immediately after the ‘payroll event’. Therefore, helping business owners to avoid employees’ grievances and late submission penalties.

2. Minimising the Error

As already mentioned, payroll is a chaotic task and carries voluminous data. Working on different activities simultaneously increases the chances of maximizing errors. The ATO can pre-fill business activity statements with a single-touch payroll process to reduce the chances of double handling and potential errors.

3. Eliminates the Task of Providing Payment Summaries

Providing payment summaries to employees is a crucial task done by every employer. Aligning the STPs process helps track the figure taken from STP submission and make them available online. Now, the employees can generate their payroll slips directly via my government account. It helps employers save their time and money by avoiding distributing payment summaries at the end of every year.

4. Encourages Digitalization

With this new concept, the government has contributed to encouraging digitalization. It enables companies to know the latest tools & technologies and integrate the same techniques into their business activities. Obviously, you can visit us to discuss the current circumstances of your business and hire payroll outsourcing services for your business in Australia.

What Are The Essential Key Factors to Consider While Choosing a Payroll Provider?

Your payroll provider must be able to support you with-

• Confirm whether your current payroll provider is single-touch payroll compliant or not.
• Proper documentation of pay codes to ensure tax, superannuation and workers compensation compliance.
• Review your payroll system to ensure PAYG withholding and superannuation configurations.
• Are there any impacts on any other software or systems that are currently integrated into the payroll system?
• Aligning calculations associated externally to the payroll system.
• Confirm whether you meet the ATOs exemption classifications wherever are applicable.

Final Words

Apart from the details mentioned above, it is crucial to know the alignment process of the single touch payroll process because it is an utterly unavoidable practice and can affect your business in the long run. And, undoubtedly it is beneficial to outsource the integration of single-touch payroll compliance to increase your productivity and focus on the core activities of your business.

Outsourcing payroll services is not a new concept for Australian business owners, and they cannot deny its advantages to your business. So, if you are searching for an impeccable payroll service provider for your business, you can contact us by following a simple process..

Save More, Do More With Smart Accounting!

Get customized plan that supports your growth

Explore Pricing!