Support

Regarding the newly announced JobKeeper payments from the government, we here at Lightning Payroll, like you, are still waiting to hear the finalisation of the legislation. This means at this stage we do not know how to advise how these payments will be processed.

As soon as this information becomes available to us, we will be updating our support information here to advise our users how to input the JobKeeper payments into Lightning Payroll. We will also immediately update the Latest News section on the home screen of your Lightning Payroll program. 

One thing we are certain of so far is that you need to register your interest to be involved in the JobKeeper program with the Federal Government by clicking here. 

AUSkeys are now a thing of the past. The ABR and ATO are decommissioning AUSkeys on March 28th 2020. M2M Credentials, otherwise known as Machine Credentials are the new way to identify yourself digitally with the ATO and within Lightning Payroll. These are fully handled by the ATO now, and not given by the Australian Business Register.

For instructions on getting your Machine Credential please see our FAQ on the topic.

If you employees seem locked, or you are being prompted to enter your email and subscription ID all of a sudden (see below) it is due to your using an outdated version of Lightning Payroll (the current version is 2020.4.3p4). To move forward please download and reinstall the program using one of the links shown below. Your data is safe and will not be affected by reinstallation.

Download for Windows (Windows 7 and above)
Download for Mac OSX (Version 10.12 and above)

Note: If your program does not seem to have updated after reinstallation, please check your computer's desktop for a new Lightning Payroll shortcut which will point to the new version.

Please click here to download our recent Christmas Newsletter. It includes information on our holiday support hours, application updates, ATO/STP outages and more.

When contacting the ATO for help regarding Machine Credentials, they may ask you to provide a software ID.

As Lightning Payroll is desktop-based, we do not utilise software IDs for Single Touch Payroll. Desktop-based programs instead utilise locally installed machine credentials (please see the following from the ATO's website).

In cases such as this, you can inform the ATO that you do not have a software ID and simply need advice on how to install your own machine credential.

If this does not resolve the issue, you can also refer them to the following page for further clarification:

https://info.authorisationmanager.gov.au/business-software-user-or-provider

Usually clicking Check for Updates Now? at the bottom of the main program window takes care of this, but in some cases this does not work and the program simply reopens to the same version (typically 2019.1.1p10).

If updating fails for some reason, you can download the latest version directly from the links below:

(Your data is safe and will not be affected by reinstallation)

Download for Windows (Windows 7 and above)
Download for Mac OSX (Version 10.12 and above)

Click here to download our 2019 End of Year Checklist for information on STP, AUSkeys, updating your software and more.