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SpinifexIT blog single touch SAP payroll is here

Single Touch Payroll is Nearly Here for SAP Payroll

Single Touch Payroll is Nearly Here for SAP Payroll 1024 512 SpinifexIT

    After attending the latest SAP Single Touch Payroll (STP) update session this week and also after using the pilot STP solution, I thought I would write up some detail on what I think of it.

    What is Single Touch Payroll?

    Single Touch Payroll is a new initiative by the ATO to effectively replace the Year-End Payment Summary process with a new process that reports payments on a per pay period basis.

    This means that there needs to be an STP transmission file containing all of the employees’ pay details created per pay period. This file is then transmitted to the ATO using a Secure Transmission. For this part, SAP are proposing to use their SAP Cloud Integrationsolution.

    STP was set to go live on 1st July 2018 for organisations with more than 20 employees, however, SAP have obtained an exemption for their existing SAP Payroll customers until the 31st of May 2019 – which is roughly 8 months away.

    SAP STP Design

    After working with SAP Payment Summaries for over 20 years, I was very interested in what is new with Single Touch Payroll and what the impact for existing customers would be to transition to this. I was initially wondering if this would be a large transition for existing customers, or a large implementation.

    Luckily the STP solution seems to have been designed with this in mind.  For an existing customer already configured and using Payment Summaries, the transition work should be minimal. There are a few key differences however and these are important to consider during an implementation

    Configuration

    • Wagetype Configuration.  STP, like Payment Summaries, requires you to nominate the specific wagetypes that are to be reported during the STP. Previously, for Payment Summaries, this used an Evaluation Class 11 to identify these wagetypes. Using a similar approach, STP will use a new Evaluation Class 13.  The wagetypes must also be culminating to the CRT (Year to Date table) in SAP. These wagetypes need to be reviewed and set up correctly before running the new STP process.
    • ABN Details.  SAP have kept the same approach as the Payment Summary solution here and have reused the same table (T5QGP) to hold the ABN details for the company.  Some additional fields have been including Intermediary Details. We would suggest reviewing all of your ABN details as part of the transition to STP.
    • STP Transmission Settings.  New settings have been added for the transmission side of STP.  These are held in the table view (V_T50BK). Items such as the Auskey ABN, BMS identifier and ports for the transmission need to be setup here.
    • Payroll Schemas. STP will now be calculated during the payroll processing and the results will be stored in new Payroll Cluster tables:

    SABN – Holds the ABN Details when running the payroll

    ACRT – Holds the Year to Date values at ABN level

    AETP – Holds any ETP Payments calculated Year to Date

    STP Processing

    The wagetypes to be used during the STP processing are stored during the payroll process. This updates the SABN, ACRT and AETP tables.

    Source: SAP Payroll Webinar by Vikas Pandey

    After the payroll process, there are a few additional steps:

    • Generate Reporting Data – This transaction (PC00_M13_STP_GEN) is used to generate the data that is used to create the transmission file to the ATO.  This will read the SABN, ACRT and AETP tables and then create both a company and Employee files containing the information summarised and ready to be transmitted to the ATO.  This report allows you to view the Employer, Employee, Allowance details and any error messages that are generated during the STP run. The following tables are updated by this process:
    1. T5Q_STP_ER – Employer Details
    2. T5Q_STP_EE – Employee Details
    3. T5Q_STP_PAY – Allowance Details
    • STP Declaration and Submission – This transaction (PC00_M13_STP_VIEW) allows you to select the run from the above step, view the details going into the STP run and create the Declaration that these values are correct.  This Declaration needs to be completed before proceeding to transmitting the data and is a required step by the ATO.
    • Transmission to the ATO – The final step is the Business to Authority transmission (Transaction PB2A).  This is where you will transmit the STP data to the Tax Authority using the SCI (SAP Cloud Integration) solution.  It not only allows for transmission, but also receives any errors back from the ATO after the file has been validated.

    Summary

    In summary, the SAP STP solution is not far away.

     With a planned release date of October 11th, now is the time for customers to start to plan for the solution’s upgrade and implementation. Whilst you do have the option to defer until the 31st of May 2019, we would not recommend waiting too long as there is still a lot of work to do.

    I will follow up this blog with a further overview of the System Requirements, Configuration, some considerations when upgrading. I will also talk about SpinifexIT’s newest solution, Easy STP, and how it enhances the usability of the standard SAP STP solution.

    #ComeSeeSpinifexIT

    Are you a SpinifexIT Customer who would like to learn more about our Easy STP solution first hand? If so, I’m inviting you to join our Customer Days scheduled across October and November. You may click here to view the schedules and agenda. Customer Days are FREE events for SpinifexIT Customers. Visit the link now and register to reserve your spot if you haven’t yet.

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