How Do I Process Single Touch Payroll?

Since July 2019 the ATO has required employers to align their ATO reporting with their pay schedule and submit employee year-to-date figures using the Single Touch Payroll (STP) reporting standard each time pays are processed. Lightning Payroll supports STP Phase 2, which became compulsory on 1 January 2022.

Before You Begin

In the desktop app: you need an ATO machine credential (M2M keystore file) on your computer. See How Do I Create a Machine Credential? for setup instructions.

In the online (web/mobile) app: you need to register your SSID with the ATO instead of using a machine credential. Your SSID is displayed beside your company name in the top navigation bar of the web or mobile app. Lightning Payroll's ABN (Intellitron Pty Ltd t/a Lightning Payroll) is 41 133 738 682.

To register your SSID with the ATO, you can either:

• Add it yourself via the ATO Access Manager website - instructions are available here, under the Notify us of your hosted services section; or
• Call the ATO on 1300 852 232 and provide your SSID to have them set it up for you.

Submitting STP - Desktop App

Complete your pays as usual, then click Submit Payroll To ATO from the Pays screen. The Single Touch wizard opens:

1. Select the employees and event type. Lightning Payroll automatically suggests a New event for pay runs that have not yet been reported. Always report pays in chronological order of the processed date - STP uses only the processed date to determine what to report, not the pay run date.
2. Review the preview of the STP data. You can view, print, or save the Detailed Report or Summary Report from this page.
3. Click Submit To The ATO to send.

You can only have one New event per processed date, so keeping accurate processed dates on your pay runs is important. To check for STP response messages from the ATO, click Single Touch Mailbox from the Pays screen.

Submitting STP - Online (Web/Mobile) App

Complete your pays as usual, then click Submit Payroll to ATO from the Pays screen. The Single Touch wizard opens:

1. Select the employees and event type on the selection screen.
2. Review the Single Touch Payroll Preview screen. You can view the Detailed Report or Summary Report from here.
3. Click Submit to send.

To review your submission history and ATO responses, navigate to Single Touch Payroll Mailbox from the Pays screen. You can filter by date, employee, or status.

Read the ATO's Single Touch Payroll Factsheet

This video tutorial demonstrates how to submit Single Touch Payroll from the desktop app.