Workplace Giving is a simple way to regularly donate to charities or organisations that are entitled to receive tax-deductible donations.
To be able to set Workplace Giving up correctly in WageEasy, and in order to comply with the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) guidelines, create an Allowance (Type Deduction) as a salary sacrifice and set it to display correctly in STP2.
Note: The setup provided in this article allows your employees to have the immediate tax benefit of the Workplace Giving arrangement. Alternatively, the workplace giving deductions can be an untaxed Deduction Allowance in WageEasy; in this alternative setup, employees will not receive the immediate tax benefit.
To set up the Workplace Giving Allowance, go to Setup, Allowances, Add and Next on the Allowance Wizard Welcome screen.
Select Standard Allowance on the Allowance Type screen, Next.
On the Allowance Details screen, enter a meaningful Description, change the Type to Deduction, ensure the Frequency is set to Each Pay, leave the Amount as zero and then the Deduction can be used for other employees. Tick the Taxed box indicating a salary sacrifice and will reduce tax, leave both Super boxes unticked and tick the Workplace Giving Payment box, Next.
On the STP Reporting screen, select Reporting Group: Deduction Items and Reporting Subgroup: W-Workplace Giving, Next.
If you do not need to setup the General Ledger Details, click Next.
On the Confirm New Allowance Details page, click Finish to close the Wizard and add the new allowance to the list.
The deduction is now ready to be used in wage processing.
Add the Allowance to Employees:
Go to Employee, select the employee, Payments, Allowance, Add.
Select Workplace Giving Allowance from the drop down in the Description field.
To change the Amount (which will show 0.00 as per the set up), tick the Override Default Amount box and change to the Amount to the amount the employee wants to donate per pay.
Select Close to save and exit the screen.
In Wages, Timesheet, the allowance will be picked up automatically. It will display on the pay slip as a deduction above the gross line. This will reduce the employee’s taxable gross.
On the Employees' ATO Payment Summary and in STP:
You must display the Employee’s Normal Gross, i.e. the full Gross (prior to the Workplace Giving) and display the Workplace Giving as a separate item under deductions in ATO Payment Summaries and in the Workplace Giving column of STP.
Workplace Giving will display as a positive value.
By ticking Show on ATO Payment Summary / Show As Workplace Giving in Setup, Allowances ensures the correct Gross shows on the ATO Payment Summary and in STP.
At year end, please note that the Gross that appears on your ATO Payment Summary will be different to the Gross from your standard Payment Summary Report. If an employee has been paid $1500.00 and contributed $50 towards a Workplace Giving program, your standard Payment Summary Report would display $1450.00 although the ATO Payment Summary Gross and STP would be $1500.00 with $50 shown as a separate deduction amount.
Note: The ATO states that an employee’s workplace information is subject to privacy laws. You cannot release information to participating charities without the written permission of each employee.