Adding Reportable Fringe Benefits if an employee is not in the STP event

As you know, the FBT year is 1 April – 31 March and this can sometimes cause confusion if for example an employee was terminated, or they simply did not have any earnings in the current financial year - how will you report RFB for them, in an STP event, if the employee is not in the event?  Let me show you.

If you give an employee more than $2,000 in benefits, you must report the grossed-up taxable value on their payment summary or through Single Touch Payroll for the corresponding income year. These are called reportable fringe benefits and you can read more on the Australian Tax Office (ATO) website.

The Reportable Fringe Benefits feature within the Update Event module allows you to edit this information if it is incorrect or missing at any point before you lodge the update event with the ATO. Before you can add the required reportable fringe benefits, you will need to create an update event. To read further details on how to create an update event, refer to the following guide.

The below premise will walk you through how to edit your RFBA data.

1. Log into you Payroll platform.
2. Click the   Report menu.
3. Click the Single Touch Payroll submenu.
   
4. Select the pay event that needs reportable fringe benefits edited.
    
5. Click the Actions   button.
6. Click the Export RFBA Template button.
   
7. Select the required financial year and file format.
8. Click the Download button.
    

1. Log into your Payroll platform.
2. Click the   Report menu.
3. Click the Single Touch Payroll submenu.
   
4. Select the pay event that needs reportable fringe benefits edited.
    
5. Click the Actions   button.
6. Click the Bulk Import RFBA button.
   

1. Log into your Payroll platform.
2. Click the   Report menu.
3. Click the Single Touch Payroll submenu.
   
4. Select the pay event that needs reportable fringe benefits edited.
    
5. Click the   button.
6. Make the required changes and click the Save button.
    

Further information

I have downloaded the RFBA spreadsheet. How do I complete it?

The spreadsheet will contain all the employees attached to the pay schedule. It includes employees that may not appear in the finalisation event, so take care when entering the required amounts. Employees that are not in the pay event can remain in the excel document as long as they have zero RFBA.

You can enter all the relevant grossed-up amounts against each applicable employee, and, once you have saved the RFBA data, you can go back to the finalisation event, and upload the information. Once you upload the spreadsheet, all RFB amounts will appear against each of the relevant employees.

If you have tried to import amounts for employees that were not included in the pay event, you will receive a warning stating that you did not include these employees in this pay event. If you still need to import fringe benefits amounts for these employees, you will need to do so via an amended finalisation event.

Some important points to consider are:

• If your business has multiple pay schedules, there will be separate worksheets for each pay schedule and we will list the employees in their relevant worksheet based on their pay schedule.
• You must only enter the grossed-up taxable value of these benefits.
• Do not enter any cents in the amounts.
• Do not include any FBT amounts in the employee's gross earnings.
• Import the template on a per pay schedule basis for each finalisation event.
• The amount entered must be the YTD amount. If you have entered any amounts in other events, we will include these amounts in this data export. If you need to update an employee's YTD amount, enter the actual YTD amount in the field so that it overrides the existing amount.

Which FY do I report RFB in?

I think the simplest way to think about it is that if the FBT year is April-March, you will report amounts paid in that year in the financial year ending June in the same year as the March FBT year. 

Meaning, the reportable fringe benefits amount on your income statement or payment summary for the year ending 30 June 2023 would be the grossed-up taxable value of the reportable benefits provided between 1 April 2022 and 31 March 2023.

Report RFB for an employee who does not show up in your finalisation event

An employee who has been terminated in the pay run has already been marked as Is Final in the pay event created from that pay run, so it's not surprising they do not show up in a finalisation event, and you cannot add them here.

Similarly, an employee who is not been paid any earnings in the financial year you are finalising will obviously not show up in the finalisation event.

So, you have two options for adding RFB for an employee who is not in your finalisation event, you can do it in either an update event or an amended finalisation event.

Here are some helpful hints and screenshots to assist you with adding an employee to the event of your choice and then add the RFB.

• In an update event via STP Phase 1 (30/06/21 and prior) click on the 'Actions' > 'Add employee' button: 
  .......then enter the amount for each employee by clicking on the edit (pencil) icon to open the field, enter the grossed up amount and then click on the save (tick) icon.
• In an update event via STP Phase 2 (from 01/07/21 onwards) click on the 'Actions' > 'Add employee' button:
  
   .......then select 'Actions' > 'Enter RFB amounts' and enter in the year-to-date RFB amounts for each employee, then select the 'Save' button when finished.
  
  
• In an amended finalisation event - keep in mind you won't have the option to create an amended finalisation event until after you've lodged your finalisation event - click on this link to an article that will walk you through creating the amended finalisation event, then you can either select the appropriate employee from the drop down list...
  or simply type their name in the Amended Employees field...  
  then step through the wizard to the Enter Reportable Fringe Benefits page 
  

Prior to 16 July 2021 there were an additional 2 sub-settings which separated out the type of organisation and whether or not employees were entitled to a separate cap for salary packaged entertainment benefits. These have both been removed as they do not impact whatsoever how RFB amounts are reported for employees via STP (or payment summaries for that matter) and so were redundant. As a result, the following will also occur:

• Any existing lodged STP events that did not have RFB amounts reported will only have one RFB column (called “RFBA”) displayed in the event;
• If any existing lodged STP events have RFB amounts reported in the ‘RFBA – Entertainment’ or ‘RFBA – Other’ column, the applicable RFB column will remain in the event as will the amounts previously reported, that is, previously entered RFB amounts will not be lost as a result of this change;
• As per new STP events created moving forward there will only be one column for RFBA.

As usual, don't hesitate to contact our support team in the usual way if you have any questions or concerns about this process.