Proposed Super Guarantee Payslip Changes from 1 July 2013

Update1: Deferred, will not apply from 1 July 2013! Update2: In 2014 the ATO advised this issue is no longer being pursued and will therefore not apply. The requirement to report additional superannuation contribution details on payslips has been deferred twice and is now scheduled to commence 1 July 2013. Although the details are still (as at Mar 2013) not finalised, the ATO has stated that in addition to showing the superannuation contribution amount, employers will have to show the date they expect to pay the contribution.

Making the Changes in your Software Most MYOB® and QuickBooks® users already calculate and show the contribution amount on payslips. There are Support Notes that cover this in detail. We will concentrate on the additional requirement of showing the expected date of the super payment on the payslip, in other words advising the employee of the date you expect to pay the superannuation contribution to the nominated Superannuation Fund. This can be quite easily achieved using existing features in your current MYOB® or QuickBooks® version. There are several methods was are aware of, we will refer to them as the Easy Method MYOB, the Easy Method Quickbooks, the Category Method MYOB and the Memo Method MYOB.

Improving the Default Payslip in MYOB® Before looking at how to make the changes to your payslip, you will need to know a little about Customising Forms. MYOB® ships with one payslip form (very basic) and although this form can be customised, we want to show you how to add a new improved payslip. This will give you an idea about customising forms, in particular payslips.

Basic - Click to enlarge.	Improved - Click to enlarge.

The Improved version is based on a Paycheque Laser form that came with a Payslip (or Pay Advice). This looks much better but is not available as a payslip. If you do not pay electronically you can still use this as a payslip (Print Paycheques on Process Payments Screen) but then it cannot be emailed, as this can only be done from the Print Employee Payslips screen, where this form is not an option. We are going to show you how to make this Paycheque form available on the Print Employee Payslips screen. Step 1 Open AccountRight v19. (will work in other versions although process may be slightly different) Step 2 Go to Setup, Customise Forms, Payslips, choose 'Plain Paper Pay Slips' and press Customise button. Step 3 On the Customise screen, do Ctrl + a or Edit, Select All and then press Del to clear the screen (note this will not affect your default Pay Slip). Step 4 Click the 2nd last button on this toolbar (properties) and un-tick the 'Snap to Grid' check-box on the Options tab and press OK to close. Press the 'Save Form As' button and give it a suitable name (eg 'New Payslip'). Click Cancel, Cancel to get back to the Command Centre Step 5 Go to Setup, Customise Forms, Paycheques, and choose 'Laser Pay-2009 Payslip for Laser form' and press Customise button. Step 6 On the toolbar, under Layout select Paycheque. On this screen do Ctrl + a or Edit, Select All and then Ctrl + c or Edit, Copy. Press Cancel, Cancel to get back to the Command Centre. Step 7 Go to Setup, Customise Forms, Payslips, choose 'New Payslip' (or whatever you called it in Step 4 and press Customise button. Step 8 On the Customise Screen Ctr + v or Edit, Paste. While everything is selected, use the left/right arrows to centre things on the screen. Click on a blank section to unselect everything. Step 9 Hold down the Shift key and use the mouse to select the 6 boxes on the top of the screen (see image below). While only those boxes are selected, use the down arrow to move them to the table below, so that the left, right and top margins are the same (see image below.

Before - Click to enlarge.	After - Click to enlarge.

Once done, press the 'Save Form' button and then Cancel, Cancel back to the Command Centre. Step 10 Go to Setup, Customise Forms, Paycheques, and again choose 'Laser Pay-2009 Payslip for Laser form' and press Customise button. Step 11 On the toolbar, under Layout select Cheque. On this screen do Ctrl + a or Edit, Select All and then Ctrl + c or Edit, Copy. Press Cancel, Cancel to get back to the Command Centre. Step 12 Go to Setup, Customise Forms, Payslips, and again choose 'New Payslip' (or whatever you called it in Step 4 and press Customise button. Step 13 On the Customise Screen Ctr + v or Edit, Paste. While the pasted items are selected, use the left/right arrows to centre things on the screen. Once done, press the 'Save Form' button. Step 14 At this point you should further customise this form to suit your requirements. For example you could: Change the 'Date' text fields to 'Payment Date': Change 'Pay Advice' to 'Pay Slip'. Select entire table, move down to allow room for additional field above the table, such as Superannuation Fund Name, Member number, Annual Salary, Hourly Rate. Also allow room for the new superannuation expected payment date field. Change the 'Period Ending' field to 'Pay Period From:' and 'To:' Change the 'ACN' text and data fields to 'ABN'. To add a Data field use the left most button on the toolbar to show all available fields. The Text Field button is to the right of the Data Field button. (it might be easier to copy and paste text and data fields from the original payslip using the same method as we did in the above steps). Once you have finished customising the form to your requirements, press the 'Save Form' button and then Cancel, Cancel back to the Command Centre. I suggest you print or re-print a payslip using the new form to check all fields are in the correct place. To select the new payslip form as your default form, use the Advanced Filters button on the Review Screen before printing as shown in the image below:

Filters - Click to enlarge.

For those interested, you can download a copy of our customised form from the above process here. Download, unzip and copy the .frm file to your v19 Forms sub-folder. Note this file will only work with v19 - v19.8.