Payroll APP values reported to the ATO different from amounts lodged?

Lyn Bettens

For the second year running a client whom I sat with for each lodgement (quarterly) and confirmed details were correct has DIFFERENT amounts reported to the ATO for their payment summaries than for their STP lodgements under their company. The ATO STP events totals are correct amount. No allowances or sacrifices are paid. The individual summaries reported by Reckon have a different total. They are $12K higher. No events/adjustments were lodged outside of the wages. I did notice that the values on the phone APP STP are different to the values LODGED (which I was witness). The taxpayer made a declaration to the ATO for these amounts and now Reckon have reported different wage values? How can STP report different payroll totals under the TFNs? How can the ATO not identify the totals don't match. The payroll is for a total of $64K for the year. $12K is a massive error!

Rav

Hi @Lyn Bettens

When you look at the 2022/23 YTD Summary for the employee(s) in their profile, does it show the correct balances? ie. correct in relation to what they should be in reality.

The same applies to the EOFY finalisation screen ie. if you create a brand new EOFY finalisation in the app, are the balances that appear there BEFORE you submit it, correct?

If the balances in the YTD Summary for 2022/23 aren't correct, then the next thing to check is the pay runs themselves. Do they have valid pay items within the pay runs? Has the client created and used their own custom pay items? If so, are the earning items in particular been setup as tax applicable earnings?

The reason I ask that is earning items that are tax applicable are sent to the ATO as part of STP submissions, those that aren't will not appear in the submission and/or EOFY finalisation.

To check the setup of an earnings item go to Settings ➡ Earning items ➡ Select the earning item from the list ➡ Check whether its setup as tax applicable.

I've added an example screenshot from my test account on the left.

Lyn Bettens

Hi Rav

Thanks for your speedy reply.

You mentioned allowances and they might "not appear" in the totals. This is the reverse. We have $12K more of Gross Wages showing against two taxpayers for their earnings.

What I just NOW confirmed the June 2022 payrun values have crept into the 2023 year.

I find lodging and adjustment event impossible in this. Last time when I did this it doubled-up the values, even though we had ticked adjustment? We tried a NIL adjustment event to push through correct values, but it would not validate in the software? Others simply have an update event button!

Should we delete that pay event and resubmit? My client has left now. They are elderly and this is very distressing for them.

The STP log has different values to what was lodged. On the phone screen, but the total we are out is June 2022 payroll?

There was only one pay item line - no holiday pays, allowances or other items. It was so basic. I could not understand how it would fail. The gross wage was the total for each employee. For some reason it has reported differently to the ATO than the pay-event. The pay event for the company is 100% correct, but then the underlying STP data has higher levels of income.

Yes, we did amend the tax withheld on each of the pays run, because these are quarterly pays, the tax applicable was lower. We did edit these. But the super and the Gross Wages were not altered. We input the number of hours and the rate did the gross pay calculation.

At least now I know WHY Reckon's ATO declaration is correct, but the STP data is different? STP has 5 quarters of pay in it.

If you can advise on how to fix I will have to visit the client, or get them to call back so we can get this lodged properly.

Rav

Hi Lyn,

It sounds like there are a few things we need to go over and clarify.

You mentioned allowances and they might "not appear" in the totals. This is the reverse. We have $12K more of Gross Wages showing against two taxpayers for their earnings.

What I just NOW confirmed the June 2022 payrun values have crept into the 2023 year.

In regard to the above, I haven't mentioned allowances so not sure what you're referring to with that. Do you mean earnings?

The second aspect of this is, if you've isolated what the cause is ie. the June 2022 pay run, lets take a look at that.

You've mentioned its been included in the 2023 financial year. Why is that? Specifically, what is the pay date for that specific pay run? If the pay date in the pay run has been set to between 1 July 2022 -30 June 2023 then it will be included in the 2022/23 financial year.

There's more info in this article HERE on why the pay date is so important.

I'll wait to hear from you.

Cheers

Rav

Lyn Bettens

thanks Rav

No access to the phone.

But I can confirm the value showed up on the ATO's site in the 2022 STP year as of 30/6/2022. I kept a screen-shot of it.

We were very careful with the entry dates.

but the ATO declaration is "fixed" on the day this is released to the ATO. And that might well be AFTER the "paid" date.

I can look at "how important" this is, but I simply don't wish to waste anymore time on this. I want this fixed.

Can I go in and DELETE that entry?

Will that fix it?

How to do I resubmit there are no tick boxes to push through an update event like in most other STP applications? and I was not able to lodge NIL the software would not accept this. Most other software will also accept NIL payruns to make corrections.

cheers Rav.

Rav

Hi @Lyn Bettens

I understand you want to fix this but in order to do that, I need to try figure out what has happened so that I can make a recommendation to you on what your next step should be. At the moment, there hasn't been enough specific information provided about the June 2022 pay run that you've identified as the cause of the problem.

When you next have access to the Payroll App account for this client, can you please provide the following information -

• What is the pay date of that June 2022 pay run in the Reckon Payroll App account
• Is that pay date that is showing for that June 2022 pay run correct OR does it need correction?

The Payroll App does indeed have the option to send an update event and/or a nil submission (those are two very different things) but before we go down that road lets just get some detailed information on the pay run in question so we can determine the next step.

Lyn Bettens

Hi Rav

Sorry for the delay.

My client checked and the entry was marked paid on 30/6/2022.

There were several entries put through on that day to push-thought the correct values to the ATO. Which didn't work. They were all dated 30/6/2022.

Not sure where too from here, because that transaction should have sat in the 2022 year (and indeed we ended up with a double up).

If you can advise what needs to be done next we will try and give it a go!

Thanks

Lyn