Compliance

Marlin HR complies with all relevant requirements imposed by the appropriate authorities (e.g. Australian Taxation Office, Australian Banking Authority) and maintains Marlin HR so as to remain compliant as these requirements change over time.

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ABA Bank File

Issued by the Australian Bankers Association (ABA) the ABA or Cemtext file format is a format used by banks to allow for batch transactions. Whilst not a "standard" most Australian Banks have adopted this format by default.

An ABA file format is also known as a Direct Entry file, a Cemtext file format or simply as an ABA file. It has the extension ".aba" and is (usually) a standard ASCII format. The ABA file format is generally used to upload a "batch" of all your transactions to be processed in one hit.

Whenever a pay run is finalised, Marlin HR automatically creates an ABA format bank file for you to upload to your online banking website (see Banking File). This can save you a lot of manual keying and prevent keying errors.

Note: CommBiz have implemented a slight variation to the ABA file format and Marlin HR is able to handle this by setting a system switch to YES. Please contact Megabus if you will use CommBiz to pay your employees.

Employee Payment Summaries

Every year you must provide each of your employees with a payment summary (formerly known as Group Certificate) by 14 July, showing how much you paid them for the financial year and how much tax you withheld from the payments. The ATO provides strict guidelines on exactly what information must be included in these payment summaries and how it must be shown.

Marlin HR produces ATO compliant payment summaries for all employees during the End of Year Close-off process and also during the year for terminated employees.

Note: Employers using the Single Touch Payroll reporting facility in Marlin HR are not required to provide payment summaries to employees as all of the information is already available to employees and their accountants via the MyGov portal.

PAYG Withholding Annual Report File

At the end of each financial year you must lodge a PAYG withholding annual report. The report must include:

• all payments you made to payees during the financial year
• the amounts you withheld from those payments.

This report, known as the EMPDUPE file, must be created per a strict file format and lodged online with the ATO by 14th August. From time to time the ATO makes changes to the file content (e.g. adding employer's FBT Status and employee's Working Holiday Maker status) and Megabus implements these changes and distributes them via a Marlin HR program update.

The End of Year Close-off process in Marlin HR generates the Payment Summaries for employees and the PAYG withholding annual report for the ATO.

SuperStream Contributions File

Superannuation contributions (information and payment) must now be submitted to the relevant funds simultaneously and by specified dates. Much like the ABA Bank File, a payroll officer can save a great deal of time by submitting a single batch file containing all of the relevant information to a superannuation clearing house or superannuation fund that offers this service. This file must be created in the SuperStream Alternative File Format (SAFF).

Marlin HR creates these files for you in the SAFF format, ready for you to upload to your superannuation clearing house or superannuation fund.

Single Touch Payroll (STP)

As of 1 July 2018, employers with 20 or more employees (as counted on 1 April 2018) need to submit specified information to the ATO electronically as pay runs are completed. This information must abide by the file formats and messaging protocols specified by the ATO for this purpose (see HR Single Touch Payroll for further information).

Megabus has integrated the STP functionality into Marlin HR and partnered with a best of breed electronic messaging specialist to send the STP files through a secure and compliant gateway to the ATO.

Marlin HR version 2.0.5 has successfully passed all of the ATO's conformance testing and Product Validation Testing and has been approved by the ATO for Single Touch Payroll reporting.