Bosco Chartered Accountants

Have you recently spent many hours manually producing your employees PAYG summaries for the end of the financial year? Then you probably don’t want to be told how easy it can be after the fact…BUT, we can suggest how to make it easier moving forward.

Easy compliance starts with good record-keeping. This all starts with providing payslips to your employees. With the right online accounting solutions in place, small business owners can easily:

• calculate wages, leave, superannuation and other entitlements accurately 
  
• reduce the overall time spent on payroll processing
  
• produce employees PAYG Summaries  
  
• check records to find any mistakes 
  
• resolve any disputes over pay and other entitlements  
  
• avoid fines for not keeping the right records.

On a weekly basis, payslips ensure that employees receive the correct pay and entitlements and allow employers to keep accurate and complete records.

How and when are payslips given?

Payslips should be given to an employee within 1 working day of pay day, even if an employee is on leave. They should be in either electronic form or hard copy.

What has to be on a payslip? (The boring but important stuff!) 

Payslips have to cover details of an employee’s pay for each pay period including: 

• employer’s name and Australian Business Number 
  
• employees name 
  
• the pay period and date of payment 
  
• gross and net pay
• If the employee is paid an hourly rate:
• the ordinary hourly rate & the number of hours worked at that rate
• the total dollar amount of pay at that rate
• 
  
• any loadings, allowances, bonuses, incentive-based payments, penalty rates or other paid entitlements that can be separated out from an employee’s ordinary hourly rate
• any deductions from the employee's pay 
  
• any superannuation contributions paid for the employee’s benefit, including the amount of contributions and the name of the superannuation fund 
  

(All of this is already set up for you if you use an online accounting solution… see, we promised it was easy.)

Should leave balances be on a payslip?

While it's best practice to show an employee's leave balances on their payslip, it’s not a requirement. Employers however, do need to tell employees their leave balances if they ask for it.

With payroll compliance obligations out of the way the EOFY should be an exciting time to reflect on the past 12 months of your business performance, to evaluate your business growth and to plan for the next year ahead. 

Tax planning and reviewing your financial information shouldn't just happen at 30 June. This is a year-long service provided by Bosco as your trusted financial advisor. Contact us for recommendations for easy online accounting software that has everything you need to take care of business including payroll.

Having a partnership between Bosco and your online accounting software will see your business leap effortlessly through end of year payroll reporting with peace of mind.