This Planet Software have had an eventful and enjoyable year, with large shifts in payroll legislation, many developments have been completed and some significant core changes have allowed us to be Single Touch Payroll Compliant in time for the July 1st Deadline. In this document, we will detail this year’s new functions and items of interest.
Single Touch Payroll
Single Touch Payroll (STP) is a major enhancement to this years release, simplifying your compulsory reporting to the ATO. The structure of STP allows for greater error correction and more flexibility when reviewing previous pays in error. The Year to Date nature of STP effectively means any errors not picked up, whether in actual funds dispersed or in tax and superannuation withholdings, in the previous pay runs can be easily over written by the next corrected submission. The only real world implications for you, as a payer, is that you will need to use adjustments when correcting mispaid or miscalculated amounts. Which is the best practice regardless, it preserves an accurate audit trail and alters the YTD figures correctly for the next submission.
This Planet worked in unison with our STP message handling service provider (MessageExchange), to provide our clients with the most efficient and direct reporting process. As the ATO’s STP process is in its infancy, the advice given by the ATO to developers who run a similar platform to our own is to engage one of these third party message providers to ensure that any alterations throughout the first year are adapted to, by the message handling provider, not our clients. As these alterations occur throughout the year, we will be adapting the STP functionality within our applications, with zero impact to your day to day operations, ready for a more “ATO final” version of the functionality in future releases. Reducing the reliance on a third party message provider long term to adapt to the ATO’s shifting requirements.
A specialist STP guide will be provided in the coming weeks.
Multi-Factor Sign In
As a beneficial side effect of the ATO’s specific security requirements for STP, Multi Factor Sign In is now available. What this means for you as a user is that each staff member that uses the Venus back end will need either a valid unique email address or a valid unique mobile phone number for a generated code to be sent to, to allow them to log in each day. The resulting code will be valid for that day and reset at midnight for any users who log out prior to midnight. There will be no need to re-enter codes for those logged in over midnight, still, logging out entirely at the end of shift is important for stable operation.
Inactive Nurses
Inactive nurses can now be flagged through the lack of rosters, pay-slips and notes against their profile from a defined period, as below:
New Reports – Details will be in the reports manual
- Funding Program Summary Report – Added patients with days left on a funding program.
- Funds Still Available on a Funding Plan
- Visa Based – Hours Worked in a Defined Period
- Flexibility added to Assess Selected Worker for Adjoining Shift – Allowing for current week, previous week and upcoming week.
NDIS Rates
NDIS rates for the 18/19 year have not been released as of 08/06/2018, previous years rates will carry over and new rates will be applied once released.
Tax Tables
Tax Tables have been drafted by the ATO in multiple variations dependent on which legislation passes in the coming weeks. We have applied the most likely tables to this release and are ready to alter those on short notice if any changes are made. We will be sending schedule invites to anybody who needs an updated rate table post release.
Un/Link roster to Homecare
You are now able to Link or Unlink a set of rosters to a funding program when you first come on board with the home funding module, this means you will be able to assign existing invoices to a funding program if required.