Changing payroll providers

Changing payroll providers during a financial year must be planned carefully. Implemented incorrectly, it may lead to data duplication on the ATO side. You can choose one of the following three processes we support at the moment.

1. Finalise existing payee records with your old payroll provider and start fresh with us

👍 straight forward process 👎 two separate Income Statements per payee (one for each payroll provider)

The fact that two separate Income Statements are created must be communicated to your payees. Not being aware that there are multiple Income Statements to include when submitting their Income Tax Return may lead to potential issues at the end of the financial year.

The actual process is fairly straight forward. Finalise the existing payee records with the old payroll provider first, then keep the new BMS ID automatically generated by our system and you are ready to start STP reporting with seSQue Payroll.

Failing to finalise the existing payee records with the old payroll provider, before making your first STP lodgement in seSQue Payroll, may lead to data duplication on the ATO side.

2. Zero out existing payee records with your old payroll provider and bring over your payees' opening balances

👍 one Income Statement per payee 👎 tedious process, having the enter all payees' opening balances

This is the method preferred by the ATO. You must first zero out the existing payee records with your old payroll provider. Then you must keep the new BMS ID automatically generated by our system and while adding your payees enter their opening balances too. The first successful STP lodgement in seSQue Payroll will bring your payees' ATO balances back to date.

Failing to zero out the existing payee records with the old payroll provider, before making your first STP lodgement in seSQue Payroll, will lead to duplicated payee records on the ATO side.

3. Keep BMS ID and payee identifiers (Payroll ID) issued by your old payroll provider and bring over your payees' opening balances

👍 one Income Statement per payee 👎 error prone process, incorrect/mistyped identifiers will lead to duplicated ATO payee records

This method is not favoured by the ATO, because it defeats the purpose of the BMS ID to uniquely identify the source of all pay events throughout the financial year. Thus it should only be used as a last resort, for out of the ordinary scenarios such as having no access to the old payroll provider system.

In respect to the actual process, there is nothing to be done on the old payroll provider's side. However, things get more elaborate on our side. First, you must replace the BMS ID automatically generated by our system with the BMS ID issued by your old payroll provider.

Note that the format we have chosen for our BMS ID is the Globally Unique Identifier (GUID). Therefore, this option will only work if your existing BMS ID is also compliant with RFC 4122.

Later on, when adding your payees, you must use the Payroll IDs issued by your old payroll provider.

Failing to use both the BMS ID and the Payroll IDs issued by your old payroll provider will lead to duplicated payee records on the ATO side.

Last but not least, you must enter your payees' opening balances, so that STP reporting can continue from where you left off with your old payroll provider.