Single Touch Payroll was compulsory for employers with 20 or more employees as of 1 July 2018.

As of 1 July 2019, employers with 19 or fewer employees were also be required to adopt Single Touch Payroll (however, there are no restrictions preventing an employer from adopting Single Touch Payroll early).

From 1 July 2021 the concessions allowing Micro Employers (4 or less employees) and Small Employers with closely held payees (less than 20 employees and only Family Members, Directors/Shareholders of a company or trustees/beneficiaries of a trust) not to adopt Single Touch Payroll will expire.

This means that all employers should now be preparing their payroll via Single Touch Payroll enabled software.

The ATO has a list of no-cost and low-cost solutions for Single Touch Payroll on their website, for Micro Employers seeking assistance in finding software.

Single Touch Payroll notifies the ATO of the employees Payroll and Superannuation information each time a pay run is processed (ie. fortnightly for an employer who pays their employees fortnightly).

Getting a business set up for Single Touch Payroll is largely dependent of the software used by the employer for processing the payroll for its employees.

Where MYOB is used, the following steps would need to be taken to set up Single Touch Payroll:-

1. Check employee details for errors
2. Assign ATO reporting categories;
3. Connect to the ATO/lodger authorisation

Where Xero is used, this link shows the steps that would need to be taken to set up Single Touch Payroll.

Where QuickBooks is used, this link shows the steps that would need to be taken to set up Single Touch Payroll.

Note that regardless of what software is used to process the payroll, care needs to be taken to ensure that the payroll function is set up correctly prior to implementing Single Touch Payroll. This will prevent incorrect information being provided to the ATO when processing payroll for your employees.