Payroll platform: Processing a Single Touch Payroll (STP) update event

Jimmy

Updated 08 February 2023 05:40

Purpose

Providing you with a step-by-step guide on how to process an update event. An update event is used to report changes to an employees year to date (YTD) amounts that you previously reported to the ATO. Update events have no connection to pay runs and therefore you can only create one when you have not made an employee payment. Before you can lodge an update event with the ATO, you need to enable STP. To read further details on how to enable this, refer to the following article.

Availability

Payroll Plan:

Standard

Premium

Getting started

The below premise will walk you through to process an update event.

Process an update event

Log into your Employment Hero Payroll platform.
Click the Report menu.
Click the Single Touch Payroll submenu.
Click the Create Update Event button.
Select the required financial year and pay schedule.
Click the Create button.

Helpful Hint

If there are no quarterly reported closely held employees in your business, select the financial year and pay schedule pertaining to this update event. If you have quarterly reported closely held employees in your business and you want to create an update event for them, select the Closely Help Employees tick box.

Helpful Hint

A list of all employees attached to the pay schedule or only quarterly reported closely held employees will appear on your screen along with their year to date details. You will now also see additional actions you can undertake, for example, Mark Your Employees as Final, Manage Client Authority, Manage RFBs, Add an Employee and Refresh Displayed Data.

Employees who have changed STP Income Types during a financial year will have a row of data for each income type with earnings recorded. Also, employees employed under multiple employing entities during the financial year will have a row of data per employing entity.
Click the Log with ATO button.
If required, select the user who will approve this finalisation event.
Select the Terms and Conditions tick box.
Click the Lodge Update Event button.

Helpful Hint

If you set up your business settings to require two-factor authentication before lodging an event to the ATO, you will need to enter a verification code after clicking on the Lodge Finalisation Event button, and prior to the event being submitted to the ATO.

Helpful Hint

You will now see confirmation of your update event lodgement.

Author recommended

So you have now processed an update event, and you are now wondering what next can I do. There are two recommendations I would make on this front and they are:

Payroll FAQ: How Do I Self Service my Single Touch Payroll (STP) Needs During this EOFY Period? This FAQ answers a range of common STP question we receive with the aim being that you can self service your questions this EOFY.
Payroll FAQ: How Do I Delete a Single Touch Payroll (STP) Update Event? This FAQ answer a common question we receive about deleting an update event that is no longer needed.