Changing payroll software mid-year
If you are changing your payroll software mid-year, there are two ways you can aleart the ATO:
- Transfer the year-to-date employee payroll balances to the new payroll software.
- Finalise STP in the old software and start reporting the employees' year to date from zero in the new payroll software.
Transferring employees' year-to-date balances to the new payroll software
This process involves notifying the ATO about the change in the payroll software. This is done via an Update action. You will need the BMSID and employee's payroll ID from the old payroll software. You will also need employees' year-to-date balances (or opening balances) reported from the old payroll software.
You can read our articles on how to access the old BMSID and payroll ID.
In this article, you will learn:
- How to update BMSID in Myaccountant.
- How to update employees payroll ID in Myaccontant.
- How to transfer employee's year-to-date balances to Myaccountant.
- How to submit the year-to-date balances to the ATO - this is to inform the ATO about the change of payroll software.
1. How to update BMSID
Once you have the BMSID and employee payroll ID, add these details in the Myaccountant software.
- Go to Settings from the top right corner menu.
- Go to ATO Settings.
- Click on Edit button to make the labels editable. Then enter the BMSID from the old payroll software in the Old BMSID label, and click on Update to save changes.
2. How to update employee's payroll ID
To add employee's payroll ID from the old software, follow the below steps:
- Go to Employees, then select the employee and click on Open.
- Click on the Employment tab.
- Click on Edit button to make the labels editable. Enter employee's payroll Id from the old payroll software in the Old Payroll Id label, and click on Update button to save changes.
3. Transfer employee's year-to-date balances (opening balance) to Myaccountant
You will need to create a pay run to enter employee's year-to-date balances from the old payroll software. The employee's year-to-date balances will include the earnings, PAYG tax and super balances. The pay run period start date, end date and pay date will be the date you want to transfer the year-to-date balances to Myaccountant. This will be the date of your last pay run submitted from the old payroll software.
Follow the below steps to create the pay run for recording the opening balances. Let's say the last pay run submitted from the old payroll software was for the period 1 September 2023 to 7 September 2023 and the pay date was 8 September 2023.
- Go to Pay runs option in the side menu, then click on Pay runs tab. Here, you can click on Add Pay Run button to create a new pay run.
- Enter pay run start date, end date and pay date as 8 September 2023 (from the above example, this was the date as at which the employees year to date balances were reported to the ATO from the old payroll software).
- A new pay run will appear in the Pay runs list. Open this pay run.
- All employees should be automatically added to this pay run. Select the employee from the employees list to start entering the year to date balances.
- Becuase this is your first pay run, you will need to start by setting up the pay items for each of the employees. To add pay items, click on Add Pay Item button.
- Let's say this employee had follwoing year-to-date balances reported to the ATO in the last pay run from the old payroll software:
- Gross Ordinary Earnings (wages): $15,000
- Annual Leave: $7,500
- Personal Leave: $750
- PAYG withholding tax: $1,700
- Superannuation: $1,897.50
You will need to select one of the Oridnary wages pay item, and also paid leave and sick leave pay items. Select by checking the box and then click on Add button to add these pay items to the employee's pay run.
- The pay items should appear in the employee's pay run. Now you can start entering the year to date balances. To make the labels editable, click on Edit button next to each of the pay item. Then start by entering year to date balance one at a time, then click on Save button to save changes. Ignore the tax and super amount for now. This will have to be manually added as well.
- To add year to date PAYG withholding tax and superannuation amount, click on Edit Tax & Super button, in the pop-up enter the tax and super amount. Then click on Update to save changes.
The employee's pay run with the year to date balances is now ready. Repeat the above steps for each employee.
4. Submit the year-to-date balances to the ATO
- Click on Actions button, then click on Finalise. This will update the pay run status to Finalised.
- Then client on Actions button again, then click on Update.
- Complete the declaration, then click on Send Update button to send it to the ATO.
Once the pay run is sucessfully submitted to the ATO. You will need to delete the Old BMSID and employees old payroll IDs.
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