Single Touch Payroll (STP) which was introduced in 2019, is an Australian government’s commitment to streamline the employer reporting obligations.  It aims to make payroll reporting more transparent, so that the employers can make sure they meet the required taxation duties imposed by the Australian Taxation Office (ATO).

 

The expansion of STP, also known as STP Phase 2 or STP2, reduces the reporting burden for employers who need to report information about their employees to multiple government agencies (For more details on Single Touch Payroll Phase 2 refer on the ATO website). In order to make sure that STP2 data is accurate and matches with the payroll processed values PeopleSoft had introduced STP2 Reconciliation solution.

 

3 Reasons to uptake STP2 Reconciliation solution:

STP2 Reconciliation solution which was posted as part of PUM Image 41, aims at helping employers to validate and spot the variances between STP reported data & Payroll processed values for each payroll run with the following:

  1. Easy Configuration – Simple setup to ensure that the right payroll element is accounted under each category that is reported.
  2. Flexibility – Unleash the capability of excel output , enabling the end-user to play around with the PayEvent Employee & Employer data for further calculations.
  3. Adaptable Solution – Custom payroll elements can be setup under each STP category. Additional STP category setup, can be defined with ease. 

 

Advantage of STP2 Reconciliation reports over the STP1 Payment summary:

  • Employers can check that their STP2 totals match up to their payroll results PTD & YTD Values in a single report for multiple calendars which the users like to reconcile.
  • With the new reconciliation solution, the legacy payment summary process & PSQuery reports need not be run to reconcile the STP2 data.
  • STP2 Reconciliation reports are easy-to-use and uses color coding to highlight the variance in values between STP & Payroll.

 

STP2 Reconciliation solution – Process flow

 

Users can run the STP2 Reconciliation solution after performing a simple validation between the STP2 category setup & STP2 Reconciliation setup.

(Note: As part of STP2 Reconciliation solution, PeopleSoft delivered a PayEvent Employee or Employer setup with the contributing elements under each collection as a system data)

 

Setting up the STP2 Reconciliation

If customers have any custom Earnings/Deductions reported in STP2, use the STP Reconciliation Setup AUS Page to include those elements in the corresponding collections introduced as part of the STP2 solution.

The STP Reconciliation Setup AUS consists of two Reports Type:

  • PAYEVENT (PayEvent Employer) – To reconcile the Period to Date (PTD) values for each pay period against the respective earning and deduction elements reported via STP.

Navigation: Setup HRMS > Product Related > Global Payroll & Absence Management > Reports > STP Reconciliation Setup AUS

 

  • PAYEVNTEMP (PayEvent Employee)  – To reconcile the Year to Date (YTD) values at the end of each pay period against the respective earnings and deduction at individual payee level reported via STP.

Navigation: Setup HRMS > Product Related > Global Payroll & Absence Management > Reports > STP Reconciliation Setup AUS

 

Salient Features of STP2 Reconciliation Process

  • PeopleSoft STP2 Reconciliation Process, provides the facility to generate the PayEvent Employer or Employee Reports separately or in combination. The report can be produced for specific sub-category, or for all.
  • Using filters in the Run Control page we can run this process to show only the employees with difference.
  • There is an option to account the override amounts entered through the update event or ignore.

Navigation: Main Menu > Global Payroll & Absence Management > Authority Correspondence > STP Reconciliation AUS

 

STP Reconciliation reports will have values populated from Payroll result tables for Earnings/Deductions (GP_RSLT_ERN_DED), Accumulators (GP_RSLT_ACUM) and STP Staging Records for an easier reconciliation.

 

Interpreting STP2 Reconciliation output

STP2 Reconciliation Reports are available as BI Publisher reports, and the outputs are available in the form of ‘xls’. PeopleSoft Report manager is used to access these reports:

  • Pay Event Employer Report
  • Pay Event Employee Report

 

Both these reports comprise of two parts:

  1. Summary sheet – Reconciles the payroll Accumulator data and STP staging data.
  2. Element Details sheet – Gives the payroll earnings/deductions and the accumulator details.

 

Sample Output: Below is a sample output for Pay Event Employee report

Note: Red highlight indicates the difference between payroll and STP outputs.

 

Additional Resources:

For additional information on STP2 & STP2 Reconciliation Solution, refer to PeopleBooks Single Touch Payroll – Phase II

For a detailed information on BI publisher, refer to Understanding BI Publisher.