You missed sending an STP report.

Your employees will not see the correct year-to-date amounts in ATO online services. There are a number of options available if you realise you have missed sending an STP report:

• You can lodge the missed report, if you are able to do so.
• If all employees in the missed report will be paid again in the next regular pay run, make sure the year-to-date values in the next pay run are up to date.
• If some employees are not being paid again, lodge an update event within 14 days to update their year-to-date balance.

If you continue to miss reports, you may be subject to failure to lodge penalties after the first year of reporting.

You have started reporting and your software is not connecting to the ATO.

See our Start reporting checklist and make sure you have taken those steps before you lodge your first report.

There are different methods for connecting your software to the ATO. In most cases, your digital service provider will tell you how to do this as part of your STP setup.

You have lodged your first STP report and you want to know if we have received it.

There is no need to phone us to confirm your report has been received.

We will send you a confirmation message once we receive your STP report. The message will generally be displayed in your software.

You can also check Online services for business to view your lodged STP reports.

We will also send a welcome letter to you when you start reporting through STP.

You use multiple payroll solutions and are unsure which Business Management Software (BMS) ID to use.

If you use the wrong BMS ID, your employees may not see accurate information in ATO online services through myGov, and this could affect their pre-filling at tax time.

You can report separately from each payroll solution. Most products will allocate the BMS ID for you. Talk to your digital service provider to find out about the BMS ID you should use.

Find out more in:

• Single Touch Payroll Phase 1 – finalising your STP data
• Single Touch Payroll Phase 2 – finalising your STP data  

You have lodged your STP report several days after paying your employees.

The law requires you to submit your STP report on or before the day you pay your employees.

If you make an out-of-cycle payment, this can be reported in your next regular pay cycle.

However, if you are consistently late submitting your reports we:

• Will issue reminders
• May apply penalties after the first year of STP reporting.  

You have used a tax file number (TFN) exemption code for an employee who has not provided you their TFN (for example, you used 000000000).

Where your employee provides you with different valid TFN (not an exemption code), you should report with this new valid TFN.

When you use a TFN exemption code, the STP information you report can't be matched to your employee. This means they will not be able to see their year-to-date tax and super information in ATO online services.

Continuing to use a TFN exemption will affect your employee's ability to use pre-filled data at tax time.

You have entered an incorrect Australian business number (ABN) in your STP report.

You must report the correct ABN.

If you use an incorrect ABN, we will not be able to match the information you report to the records of your business entity, or your employees' myGov account.

You can make a correction to update the ABN.

Find out more in:

• Single Touch Payroll Phase 1 – correcting information reported through STP
• Single Touch Payroll Phase 2 – correcting information reported through STP  

You are unsure if you need to report superannuation.

You must report superannuation amounts through STP.

For each employee, make sure you report the following each pay period:

• year-to-date employer super liability, or
• ordinary time earnings (OTE) amounts.

If you pay above the minimum super guarantee liability, you should report that amount.

If the year-to-date super liability for an employee is zero, report zero – do not leave the field blank.

Find out more in:

• Single Touch Payroll Phase 1 – the rules of reporting through STP
• Single Touch Payroll Phase 2 – the rules of reporting through STP  

You have deleted unused or legacy pay codes (such as overtime allowances) from your payroll software.

Deleting pay codes may affect the accuracy of your STP data. While your software may allow you to do this, you should check if the pay code you are deleting has been used in a previous STP report in the same financial year.

If you delete a pay code, check your data is correct before lodging your report.

You are a related entity and you need to submit STP reports on behalf of other ABNs in the group.

A related entity that submits STP reports on behalf of other ABNs within a group needs to have a business authority to lodge on their behalf.

You can create this authority. The way you do this depends on whether the entity has been linked in Relationship Authorisation Manager (RAM):

• If the entity has been linked in RAM – create the authority through Access Manager.
• If the entity has not been linked in RAM – complete a Cross entity authorisation nomination form.

The entity can choose the type of permission they want to provide. This tells us what they want you to be able to do or see on their behalf. The STP permission is called 'Payroll event form'.

Your software is requesting an email address for each employee.

Although it's not compulsory, including employee email addresses will help us identify the employee if the TFN provided doesn't match our records.

If your software requires you to enter an email address for an employee, and they don't have one, ask your digital service provider what to do. Do not enter a fake or invalid email address.

You need to correct employee YTD entitlements or add a new employee to a previously reported pay period.

You will need to lodge an update event and ensure that the correct values for all employees are reported.

You should also review your previously submitted BAS for the affected period and ensure that your W1 and W2 amounts are correct because update events do not modify your BAS figures.

You have accidentally lodged a pay event to fix previously lodged STP data rather than lodging an update event. Your employees' myGov displayed amounts are now incorrect.

You will need to lodge an update event to correct the YTD entitlements for the intended period.

Your most recently lodged employee YTD data does not match the information in your payroll software.

If you are unsure how to correct this in your payroll software, contact your digital service provider. Various scenarios may cause this issue such as, STP reporting errors and/or data validation issues.

Your software provider will be able to advise on how to resolve your issue based on your circumstances.

Your employee's income statement is showing as 'not tax ready' after you have completed your end of financial year declaration.

Check the finalisation declaration has been correctly added, and successfully processed in your payroll software.

If processed and you have changed your payroll software or updated the payroll IDs for the employee during the year, check if you have duplicated their data in your payroll software.

If you have access to those records, correct the duplication and submit the finalisation declaration.

Phone us if you need to confirm duplicated data.

You lodged an STP report when you didn't mean to or your report contained a significant amount of incorrect data.

You can only lodge a FFR to replace the latest lodgment which can be for a regular pay cycle or an out of cycle payment.

The full file replacement:

• must contain the submission ID of the lodgment to be replaced
• cannot be sent if any payee information sent in the original lodgment has been changed by a subsequent lodgment or update action
• cannot apply to an update action.  

You have submitted several FFR for the same pay period and they have failed.

A FFR can only be submitted once within a 24-hour period.

You should wait 24 hours before attempting to submit again.

If this fails again, talk to your digital service provider.

SBR.GEN.AUTH.006

You have not nominated this software provider to secure transmissions made through online (cloud based) software.

You should:

• log on to Access Manager (accessed via RAM)
• select 'My hosted software services'
• follow the instructions to nominate a provider.

Agents trying to lodge via the employer's software will need to link the SSID on the employers ABN in access manager.

Find out more on hosted SBR services by referring to Cloud software authentication and authorisation.

SBR.GEN.AUTH.008

Your nomination with the online (cloud) software provider does not contain the correct Software ID.

This error only occurs when the Software Service ID (SSID):

• is not correct; or
• does not correspond to the correct ABN.

You should confirm the ABN and SSID you are lodging under:

• log on to Access Manager (accessed via RAM)
• select 'My hosted software services'
• update the SSID.

Agents trying to lodge via the employer's software will need to link the SSID on the employers ABN in access manager.

Refer to Cloud software authentication and authorisation for more information.

CMN.ATO.AUTH.001

This error occurs when the agent number used with your ABN or credential is not related.

You should check that the ABN that's linked to your registered agent number is correct.

CMN.ATO.AUTH.011

The client transmitted is not associated with the Registered Account Number (RAN) supplied and cannot be authorised.

You should:

• Confirm you are using the correct RAN
• Ensure you have added your client at the correct role and linked them to their RAN.

You need to ensure your RAN and ABN are associated by confirming the ABN you are practicing on is linked to your clients RAN.

If your ABN is incorrect, you will need to:

• contact the Tax Practitioner Board (TPB) and update your details
• update your details on ABR.

If, as a registered agent, you are lodging via your clients' software, you need to ensure the setup has been completed correctly to run via the client profile.

Ensure you are lodging as an intermediary through the software (e.g. inputting RAN into correct fields as required).

CMN.ATO.PAYEVNT.EM.92168

The update is referring to a previous year where STP reporting did not occur.

You cannot lodge for a period prior to STP.

CMN.ATO.PAYEVNT.EM.92172

A record with the same submission ID already exists.

If submission is intended to be a full file replacement, ensure the full file replacement indicator has been selected.

If it is a duplicate, do not resend.