Payroll, STP and superannuation
Pay day stops being your problem
Payroll is the one part of the month you cannot be late with and cannot get wrong. Handed over properly it stops costing you a Sunday evening, and the figures behind it still hold up in July. Our payroll services cover the whole run: pay runs, single touch payroll filing and superannuation, reconciled to the runs rather than to a guess.
What goes wrong without it
What goes wrong in payroll usually surfaces in July
Payroll mistakes are quiet all year. They appear at finalisation, when what has already been reported to the ATO has to agree with a file nobody reconciled.
Finalised before it was reconciled
Single Touch Payroll finalisation submitted first and checked second, so an amendment becomes the only way to correct a figure your employee has already seen.
A pay run entered twice
A duplicate run overstates what has been reported for the year, and because each entry looks legitimate on its own, nobody notices until the totals are compared.
Leave paid in advance over the shutdown
The December shutdown gets processed as one long pay, and from then on the leave balances and the periods reported no longer line up.
What you get
Pay runs, super and STP in the right order
Pay runs processed on your cycle, from timesheets or from fixed hours
Single Touch Payroll filed on time, after the run has been checked rather than before
Superannuation reconciled to the pay runs each quarter, so what is owed agrees with what was paid
The wages payable account cleared to nil, which is where unnoticed payroll errors tend to sit
Leave and entitlements set up in Xero to match what you have actually agreed to pay
End of year finalisation done once the payroll reconciles, not on the deadline
How it works
Four steps, in this order
1
A free 30-minute call
How many people you pay, on what cycle, and what has been going wrong. We will tell you whether this is a handover or a repair job first.
2
We check the setup as it stands
Pay items, leave balances, superannuation settings, and what has already been reported for the year. Taking a payroll over without checking it is how last year's error quietly becomes ours.
3
We run the first cycle with you watching
You see what gets checked and in what order, so the handover is not a black box and you can still follow it afterwards.
4
Then it is a date in the calendar
Pay runs on your cycle, STP filed each time, superannuation reconciled each quarter, finalisation at year end. You approve, we do the rest.
Who it suits
Who this is for
Medical and allied health
Practitioner and staff pay running side by side without being confused.
NDIS and disability care
Rostered support hours reaching payroll instead of being retyped.
Not-for-profits
Wages split across funds and programs without a manual journal each month.
Bookkeeping and BAS
Payroll kept alongside the reconciliations and the activity statement.
Questions we answer every week
Questions we are asked most
Do you file STP for us?
Yes, as part of running the cycle. Each run is checked before it is filed, because a check costs less time than an amendment does.
Can you take payroll over part way through a year?
Yes, and it is the most common way we start. What has already been reported for the year comes across with the setup, so the year to date figures stay correct and finalisation in July is not a reconstruction.
Can you interpret our award?
We set Xero up to pay what your award or agreement requires once that is settled, and we will say plainly when a question belongs with an industrial relations specialist rather than with us. Pay items, leave setup and superannuation inside Xero are our part, and getting those right is what makes everything else checkable.
We only have a few employees. Is it worth handing over?
Small payrolls are not the same thing as simple payrolls. Two employees on different arrangements can take as long as ten on the same one, and the compliance dates are identical either way. The call is free, so it costs nothing to find out.
Would you rather we learned to run it ourselves?
If that is what you want, yes, and we will teach you on your own file. Some owners want payroll gone from their week. Others want to keep it and simply stop guessing. Both are fine, and they cost different amounts.
The free checklist
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Identify common bookkeeping errors and discover simple fixes for smoother financial management, written in plain English.