How Do I Setup JobMaker In Lightning Payroll?

From the ATO:

"On 6 October 2020, as part of the 2020–21 Budget, the government announced a new incentive for businesses to employ additional young job seekers called the JobMaker Hiring Credit. The JobMaker Hiring Credit is administered by the ATO.

Eligible employers can access the JobMaker Hiring Credit scheme for eligible additional employees they hire between 7 October 2020 and 6 October 2021, for a maximum claim period of 12 months from their employment commencement date.

Through the JobMaker Hiring Credit scheme, eligible employers may receive payments of up to:

- $200 per week for each eligible additional employee aged 16–29 years old inclusive.

- $100 per week for each eligible additional employee aged 30–35 years old inclusive."

Click here to download the ATO's JobMaker employee eligibility fact sheet.

How Do I Claim JobMaker?

• Register your business with the ATO before enabling your employees in Lightning Payroll. Part of checking business eligibility requires an active employee headcount as at 30/9/2020. You can view your number of active employees by going into Tools >> Licence Details where it will be displayed next to "Total Employees:".
• Enable your eligible employees, shown below.
• Use Single Touch Payroll (via Lightning Payroll), and your JobMaker-enabled employees will be nominated for the JobMaker Hiring Credit with the ATO.

Which Employees Are Eligible?

Employees are eligible if they:

• are an employee of the entity during the JobMaker period
• are aged 16 to 35 years old when they started employment
• started employment on or after 7 October 2020 and before 7 October 2021
• worked or have been paid for an average of at least 20 hours per week they were employed in the JobMaker period
• have given a JobMaker Hiring Credit employee notice to the employer
• have not already provided a JobMaker Hiring Credit employee notice to another current employer
• received the Parenting Payment, Youth Allowance (other than on the basis that the individual was undertaking full-time study or was a new apprentice) or JobSeeker Payment for at least 28 consecutive days (or 2 fortnights) in the 84 days (or 6 fortnights) prior to starting employment.

How Do I Enable JobMaker For An Employee In Lightning Payroll?

JobMaker (like JobKeeper) is enabled under Employees >> Tax Rates >> JobKeeper/JobMaker Settings. Simply select the option which says Tick this box to claim JobMaker Hiring Credit for this employee via STP.

Lightning Payroll will automatically generate special STP flag codes as required by the ATO using a combination of factors:

• Employee's start date
• Employee's date of birth
• Employee's hours worked

Start date and date of birth are used to detect an employee's eligibility. If they do not meet basic criteria Lightning Payroll will prevent you from enabling JobMaker for that employee.

The box at the bottom of the above image (Allow Lightning Payroll to assist with JobMaker average hours checking and flag codes?) should usually be left alone as it allows the program to check whether an employee has met the 20 hours average hours worked for each JobMaker quarter.

Please double check the claim period codes are appearing (shown in the STP submission report) at the end of each JobMaker quarter to ensure your claimed employees have met the minimum hours test or else they will not be nominated through STP for that quarter.

Lightning Payroll will also remind you about JobMaker with new employees and rehires if they meet basic date criteria.

What If The Employee's Recorded Average Hours are Not Eligible, But They Actually Did Work An Average 20 Hours?

You can manually enter period flags if you wish to manually declare an employee's minimum hours were met for any JobMaker quarter using the Active JobMaker STP Flags table. Click the green plus to manually insert a JobMaker Hiring Credit Eligibility Period, and choose the quarter in which the employee met the minimum work hours test (20 hours weekly).

Note: If you enter a manual flag it will not interfere with Lightning's automatic flag checking, causing duplicates. Lightning Payroll will not add a flag code which already exists.

Source: ATO's Guidance Document for JobMaker and Single Touch Payroll.