So much compliance for small business is making it harder and harder to keep up. You would have heard of the Single Touch Payroll (STP) for businesses. This has been implemented since July 2018 for any business with 20 or more employees, meaning all payroll must be electronic and linked to the ATO business portal.
Each time a pay run is done it is automatically sent to the ATO. No payment summaries are sent to employees from these businesses as the ATO collate the information and put that into the employees Mygov account, which is then available to the Tax Agent.
From the 1 July 2019 this has become compulsory for all employers. If you are a small business with under 4 employees, you can apply for an exemption for the next two years to not have to report your payroll to the ATO each pay run and keep sending the payment summaries annually.
There is however payroll software available from $10 per month. The ATO believes anyone in business should consider converting over into the electronic age and use some kind of bookkeeping system to help keep them compliant with GST reporting, Payroll, PAYG withholding tax and Super Guarantee to name a few.