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Add Reportable Fringe Benefits if an employee is not in the STP event

The Fringe Benefits Tax (FBT) year runs from April 1 to March 31. This can lead to reporting complexities, particularly when an employee has been terminated or had no earnings in the current financial year. A common question arises: How do you report Reportable Fringe Benefits (RFB) for such an employee within a Single Touch Payroll (STP) event if they are not included in that event?

Reportable Fringe Benefits Explained

If the total value of benefits provided to an employee exceeds $2,000, you must report the grossed-up taxable value. These are known as Reportable Fringe Benefits and must be reported on the employee's payment summary or through Single Touch Payroll for the relevant income year. You can find more detailed information on the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) website.

Updating Reportable Fringe Benefits

Our Update Event module includes a Reportable Fringe Benefits feature. This allows you to edit any incorrect or missing RFB information before lodging the update event with the ATO. To add the necessary reportable fringe benefits, you​ will first need to create an update event. Please refer to the relevant guide for instructions on how to create an update event.

Important

It is important to note that there is nowhere else on the platform that you can add Reportable Fringe Benefits (RFB) amounts, other than via the Single Touch Payroll Reporting event, when finalising the year. You should also be aware that in the event that you do need to complete an amended finalisation event, you will need to re-add your RFB data.

Getting started

Export RFBA template
  1. Log into your payroll platform.
  2. Click the Reports menu.
  3. Click the Single Touch Payroll submenu.Download_1.jpg
  4. Select the pay event that needs reportable fringe benefits edited.
    Fringe_1.jpg
  5. Click the Actions button.
  6. Click the Enter RFB amounts button. rfbamounts.jpg
  7. Click the Export button.
    exportrfb.jpg
Import RFBA Template
  1. Log into your payroll platform.
  2. Click the Reports menu.
  3. Click the Single Touch Payroll submenu.Download_1.jpg
  4. Select the pay event that needs reportable fringe benefits edited.
    Fringe_1.jpg
  5. Click the Actions button.
  6. Click the Enter RFB amount button.rfbamounts.jpg
  7. Select Import.
    importrfb.jpg
Edit reportable fringe benefits
  1. Log into your payroll platform.
  2. Click the Reports menu.
  3. Click the Single Touch Payroll submenu.Download_1.jpg
  4. Select the pay event that needs reportable fringe benefits edited.
    Fringe_1.jpg
  5. Click the Actions button.
  6. Select Enter RFB amounts.
  7. Make the required changes and click the Save button.
    saverfb.jpg

Further information

Creating a pay event for a terminated employee

If an employee has previously been terminated before being added to the Employment Hero platform, they will not appear in the finalisation events.

To rectify this, you will need to create a profile and pay event within the platform:

  • Create a profile directly in the payroll platform for these employees. Only the minimum details need to be entered. image 1.png
  • Create a pay run with dates, including the paid date, within the necessary financial year. There should be no earnings and the only accrual that may appear will be Paid Family and Domestic Violence leave and this can be ignored.
  • In this pay run terminate the employee with the original termination date and reason. Then finalise and lodge the event. image 2.png

This then means that the employees will be available to be chosen in the update event to enter the RFB.

After creating a pay run, employees can be added to an update event manually. See this article to learn how: Add an employee to a Single Touch payroll (STP) update event on Payroll classic

I have downloaded the RFBA spreadsheet. How do I complete it?

The spreadsheet will contain all the employees attached to the pay schedule. It includes employees that may not appear in the finalisation event, so take care when entering the required amounts. Employees that are not in the pay event can remain in the excel document as long as they have zero RFBA.

You can enter all the relevant grossed-up amounts against each applicable employee, and, once you have saved the RFBA data, you can go back to the finalisation event, and upload the information. Once you upload the spreadsheet, all RFB amounts will appear against each of the relevant employees.

If you have tried to import amounts for employees that were not included in the pay event, you will receive a warning stating that you did not include these employees in this pay event. If you still need to import fringe benefits amounts for these employees, you will need to do so via an amended finalisation event.

Some important points to consider are:

  • If your business has multiple pay schedules, there will be separate worksheets for each pay schedule and we will list the employees in their relevant worksheet based on their pay schedule.
  • You must only enter the grossed-up taxable value of these benefits.
  • Do not enter any cents in the amounts.
  • Do not include any FBT amounts in the employee's gross earnings.
  • Import the template on a per pay schedule basis for each finalisation event.
  • The amount entered must be the YTD amount. If you have entered any amounts in other events, we will include these amounts in this data export. If you need to update an employee's YTD amount, enter the actual YTD amount in the field so that it overrides the existing amount.
Which FY do I report RFB in?

I think the simplest way to think about it is that if the FBT year is April-March, you will report amounts paid in that year in the financial year ending June in the same year as the March FBT year. 

Meaning, the reportable fringe benefits amount on your income statement or payment summary for the year ending 30 June 2023 would be the grossed-up taxable value of the reportable benefits provided between 1 April 2022 and 31 March 2023.

Report RFB for an employee who does not show up in your finalisation event

An employee who has been terminated in the pay run has already been marked as Is Final in the pay event created from that pay run, so it's not surprising they do not show up in a finalisation event, and you cannot add them here.

Similarly, an employee who has not been paid any earnings in the financial year you are finalising will obviously not show up in the finalisation event.

So, you have two options for adding RFB for an employee who is not in your finalisation event; you can do it in either an update event or an amended finalisation event.

Here are some helpful hints and screenshots to assist you with adding an employee to the event of your choice and then add the RFB.

  • In an update event via STP Phase 1 (30/06/21 and prior) click on the 'Actions' > 'Add employee' button:update_event.jpg .......then enter the amount for each employee by clicking on the edit (pencil) icon to open the field, enter the grossed up amount and then click on the save (tick) icon.
  • In an update event via STP Phase 2 (from 01/07/21 onwards) click on the 'Actions' > 'Add employee' button:
    update_event_2.png then select 'Actions' > 'Enter RFB amounts' and enter in the year-to-date RFB amounts for each employee, then select the 'Save' button when finished.
     
  • In an amended finalisation event - keep in mind you will not have the option to create an amended finalisation event until after you​ have lodged your finalisation event - click on this link to an article that will walk you through creating the amended finalisation event. Then you can either select the appropriate employee from the drop-down list. amanded_finalisation_select_emp.jpg or simply type their name in the Amended Employees field... amended_finalisation_add_emp.jpg then step through the wizard to the Enter Reportable Fringe Benefits page amended_finalisation_add_rfb.jpg

Prior to 16 July 2021 there were an additional 2 sub-settings which separated out the type of organisation and whether or not employees were entitled to a separate cap for salary packaged entertainment benefits. These have both been removed as they do not impact whatsoever how RFB amounts are reported for employees via STP (or payment summaries for that matter) and so were redundant. As a result, the following will also occur:

  • Any existing lodged STP events that did not have RFB amounts reported will only have one RFB column (called “RFBA”) displayed in the event;
  • If any existing lodged STP events have RFB amounts reported in the ‘RFBA – Entertainment’ or ‘RFBA – Other’ column, the applicable RFB column will remain in the event as will the amounts previously reported, that is, previously entered RFB amounts will not be lost as a result of this change;
  • As per new STP events created moving forward, there will only be one column for RFBA.
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