People are really starting to get onboard with STP – there's no advantage in delaying

The ATO STP lead assistant commissioner, John Shepherd, has advised that, with a trend of around 1,600 employers each day getting their STP sorted, employers should try to commence reporting prior to the mandatory reporting date so they can - if need be - rectify early errors and reach out to the ATO ahead of the busy tax time period that is just around the corner.

ATO analysis to date indicates that there is a 10 per cent fail rate for employers' first submission on STP – largely due to employers failing to provide Software Service ID (SSID) to the ATO during STP set up - so, make sure you complete that step as part of your set up.

" Particularly (with) the cloud products, there is a one-off notification you've got to do upfront before you start reporting as an employer and that's to let us know that solution sending through the cloud to the ATO is authorised and is so we know it is your file. That's a key part of the process and if you don't do that upfront, the submissions will fail and continue to fail ," said Mr Shepherd at QuickBooks Connect 2019 in Melbourne. Any failure is best avoided, let alone repeat failures.

The ATO is expecting up to 9 million employees to be under the STP regime by 30 June 2019.

There is plenty of information and assistance available online provided by the ATO and the software providers ( MYOB , XERO , QBO ), but if in doubt, please call us. We highlight however, that unfortunately we are unable to register your software with the ATO on your behalf – that must be done by you - the organisation that processes the payruns.