STP and payroll year-end: keeping bookkeeping clients compliant
A practical workflow for STP finalisation and payroll year-end across your whole client book, with deadlines, checklists and client sign-off.
Every June, bookkeepers face the same crunch: Single Touch Payroll finalisation for every employer on the book, all due by mid-July, all needing the data to be right before you press send. When you run payroll for a dozen or more clients, the risk is not knowing how to finalise STP in one file. It is keeping track of which clients are checked, which are signed off, and which are still waiting on you. This article sets out a repeatable workflow you can run across your whole book so nothing slips.
Know the deadlines that matter
STP Phase 2 finalisation is the headline date. Employers must make a finalisation declaration to the ATO by 14 July each year so that employees see their income statement marked Tax ready in myGov. Where you lodge on behalf of a client as a registered agent, or where a client has closely held payees, different concessional dates can apply, so confirm each client's situation rather than assuming a single cut-off.
Around the same window you will also have super guarantee obligations for the June quarter, the move to the new super guarantee rate from 1 July, and the rollover of payroll software into the new financial year. Treating these as one connected year-end project, rather than separate tasks, keeps the sequence clear: reconcile, finalise STP, then roll forward.
Build one workflow you run for every client
The mistake is improvising the same steps client by client. Instead, define a single payroll year-end procedure and apply it to each employer. A recurring project template lets you generate the same job for every payroll client at the start of June, so each one carries the identical checklist and due date without you rebuilding it. In Finye you can set up templated recurring work so the year-end job appears automatically against every client who needs it, and each job becomes a trackable work item on your board.
A solid finalisation checklist for each client looks like this:
- Reconcile gross wages, PAYG withholding and super against the payroll reports and the figures reported through STP for the full year.
- Check every pay event was lodged and accepted, with no rejected or missing submissions sitting in the software.
- Review allowances, deductions and salary sacrifice are categorised correctly for STP Phase 2 disaggregation.
- Confirm reportable fringe benefits amounts where the client has an FBT liability to report.
- Verify employee details, including terminated employees and any with closely held arrangements.
- Make the finalisation declaration in the payroll software, then record the date and confirmation.
Because each step is a checklist item on the work item, anyone on the team can pick up a half-finished client and see exactly what remains. Subtasks and assignees let a senior reviewer sign off the reconciliation while a junior handles the data entry.
Track progress across the whole book at a glance
The hardest part of year-end is not any single client. It is the portfolio view: which of your forty payroll clients are done, which are blocked, and which have not been started with the deadline a week away. A kanban board with columns such as To reconcile, In review, Awaiting client and Finalised turns that anxiety into something you can see. As each client's job moves across the board, you always know where the book stands.
Finye's work items support boards with kanban and list views, status workflows, priorities and assignees, so you can filter to the payroll year-end project and watch it drain down to zero. Comments and attachments keep the reconciliation notes and reports attached to the job itself, rather than scattered across email and shared drives. If a query comes in by email, email-to-ticket can turn it into a work item against the right client so it is not lost in an inbox during the busiest fortnight of the year.
Get clean client sign-off before you finalise
Finalisation is a declaration to the ATO, so most practices want the client to confirm the payroll figures before it is lodged. The portal makes that a documented step rather than a chased phone call. Share the year-end payroll summary through the client portal, ask the client to approve, and capture the response against the job. Where you need supporting documents, such as confirmation of a director's wage or a fringe benefits figure, a document request keeps the back and forth in one place.
This sign-off also protects you. If a client later disputes a figure, you have a clear record that they reviewed and approved the numbers before finalisation. Building that approval into the workflow, as a checklist item that cannot be skipped, means it happens for every client by default rather than only when you remember to ask.
Close the loop and set up next year
Once a client is finalised, the job is not quite done. Roll the payroll software into the new financial year, apply the updated super guarantee rate, confirm any award rate changes flow through, and note anything to watch for the next quarter. Because the year-end project was generated from a template, you can refine that template now while the detail is fresh, so next June's run is smoother again.
Year-end repeats every year, so the investment in a clean, repeatable process pays back fast. A single workflow, one board to watch the whole book, and built-in client sign-off turn a stressful fortnight into a managed sequence.
If you want one place to run payroll year-end across every client, with recurring jobs, boards and a client portal for sign-off, explore the practice tools on our pricing page or create a free account and set up your first year-end project. You can also browse our guides for more practice workflows.