Setting up payroll

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Australia only – if you're in New Zealand your help is here

Setting up payroll might seem daunting, but we'll take you through it one step at a time. Once you're set up, paying your employees and staying on top of your superannuation payments and ATO reporting will be a breeze.

Every business's payroll setup is different. So if you need specific advice beyond what's covered below, the community forum is a great place to start. For more tailored help, speak with an accounting advisor.

Before you begin

If you're brand new to payroll, take a look at our handy guide to payroll for small business
Have your employees' contact and pay details handy (from a contract, award or workplace agreement)

Watch this video to see how to set up your payroll:

1. Set up payroll for your business

Each business has different payroll needs, so start by entering a few details about how payroll works in your business.

Check your payroll accounts

There are default accounts in MYOB that help group your payroll amounts for accounting purposes. Your bookkeeper or accounting advisor likely set up your accounts when you started using MYOB, but it's worth becoming familiar with these before you start paying employees.

These are known as linked accounts, and they'll be specific to your business. For example, there are accounts that group your cash, cheque and electronic wage payments. There are also accounts for things like tax and deductions and wage expenses.

Tell me more about linked accounts.

To check your linked accounts, go to the Accounting menu > Manage linked accounts > Payroll tab. To change a linked account, click the dropdown arrow and choose a different account. If needed, you can create new accounts.

Confirm your payroll settings

Basic payroll settings, like the number of hours in your working week, your default superannuation fund (if you have one), and your pay slip email defaults are accessed by clicking your business name > Payroll settings.

Here's more information about the settings on each of the tabs on this page.

General payroll information

Here are some pointers on the information you can enter on this tab:

Full-time employee weekly hours are the default hours in your working week. You can change employee hours when you pay them
Only enter a Withholding payer number (WPN) if you have one
You might choose to round pays down to a specific cent value if you pay cash
The Tax table revision date is the date the tax tables in MYOB apply from. The tax tables (or tax scales) in MYOB are updated annually and provided by the ATO. This ensures that pays dated from 1 July onwards will use the latest tax tables to ensure the correct amount of tax is calculated on your employees' pays
You can set a Default Superannuation fund if you have one and it'll apply to all new employees, or you can set up your super funds later
If you have employees paid by the hour, you can opt to use timesheets to track their hours. Select the option Use timesheets to track employee hours and choose the starting day for your working week. These employees can also submit timesheets using the MYOB Team mobile app. Learn more about entering and processing Timesheets.

Superannuation funds

This tab is where you'll set up the superannuation funds that your employees' contributions will be paid to. You'll need to add these funds before you Set up Pay Super (for more details on setting up your superannuation, see below).

To add a super fund, click Create super fund and enter the details of the fund and the employee's membership details.

For step-by-step instructions, see Set up superannuation funds.

Employment classification

An employment classification is like a job title, position description or any other role classification that might suit your business.

MYOB comes with a default list of classifications, but you can customise this to suit your business.

Click Create classification to add a new classification, or click an existing classification to change its name or delete it.

Once you've set up your employment classification list, you can assign a classification to each of your employees to display on their pay slips (Payroll menu > Employees > click an employee > Payroll details tab > Employment classification).

Learn more about Adding an employee.

Pay slip email defaults

This is where you can set the default subject and message for the pay slips emails you send your employees. You can also set your From name and Reply-to email address for the emails you send from MYOB—but be aware this will change those details for all emails you send from MYOB, including invoices and quotes.

If an employee wants their pay slip emailed, make sure you've entered their email address (Payroll menu > Employees > click an employee > Payroll details tab > Pay slips section).

When you've finished entering your payroll settings, click Save and continue your setup below.

Set up wages and deductions

The different parts of your employees' pays are called pay items. For example, you'd use pay items for things like wages, overtime and bonuses. Similarly, deductions like union fees are also handled using pay items.

But that's just the beginning. Pay items also look after things like leave and superannuation (which we cover later on).

To start with, you'll want to set up pay items for the wages and deductions that apply in your business. To make it easier, there's a set of default pay items in MYOB that you can use.

See your pay items via the Payroll menu > Pay items. To keep things simple, there's a tab for each type of pay item (Wages and salary, Superannuation, Leave, etc.).

For all the details, see Setting up pay items.

Once you've set up your pay items, you can assign them to the applicable employees. See 'Set up employees' below for details.

2. Set up employees

You'll need to set up each of your full-time, part-time and casual employees. To speed things up, you can send a request from MYOB for new employees to submit their details. You can then finish setting them up by adding their leave and pay amounts. If you've already paid an employee this payroll year using different software, you can enter the amounts you've already paid them.

Add employees

Add employees by going to the Payroll menu and choosing Create employee. You'll be prompted to send the employee a self-onboarding form so they can submit their personal, banking, tax and super details straight into your MYOB business. All you need to do is add their payroll information.

Alternatively, you can choose to skip this and manually enter the employee's details yourself on the Contact details, Payroll details and Payment details tabs. Learn all about manually adding employees.

If you'll pay an employee straight into their bank account, make sure their bank details are entered on the Payment details tab. Find out all about paying employees directly into their bank accounts.

Need to add lots of employees? Speed things up by importing them.

Set up employee leave

If your employees are entitled to leave, you'll need to set this up in MYOB. This involves setting up how the leave is calculated and whether it accrues (accumulates).

MYOB handles leave using pay items, and there are some default pay items you can use (like the example below) or you can create your own. Find your pay items via the Payroll menu > Pay items.

If a new employee has carried-over leave from previous payroll years, or they've accrued leave this payroll year you can enter these carry over leave balances.

For all the details, see Set up leave.

Set up employee pays

When you add your employees, you'll set their salary or hourly rate in their record (Payroll menu > Employees > click the employee > Payroll details tab > Salary and wages tab).

Also, when you set up your wage and deduction pay items earlier, like overtime, allowances and deductions, you might have assigned them to your employees. If you didn't, no problem—you can assign them now. Just go to the Payroll menu > Pay items > click a pay item > choose the employees to assign it to.

For all the details, see Assigning pay items to employees.

You can check all the pay items assigned to an employee in their Standard pay. Just go to the Payroll menu > Employees > click an employee > Payroll details tab > Standard pay tab.

This shows what an employee's typical pay will look like.

For all the details, see Review standard pay details.

Enter amounts already paid to employees

If you've already paid employees in the current payroll year, you'll need to enter these amounts. This includes all wages, deductions, taxes, leave (paid and accrued), and super. This ensures the employee's year-to-date payroll information is accurate—for your records and ATO reporting.

You'll do this via the Pay history tab in the employee's record (Payroll menu > Employees > click an employee > Payroll details tab > Pay history tab).

Choose the period in the Pay history for field and enter the amounts for that period. For all the details, see Pay history.

3. Set up reporting obligations

You're almost done. To stay compliant you'll need to set up the superannuation payments you'll contribute for your employees. And finally you'll set up Single Touch Payroll reporting to ensure your payroll information is reported correctly to the ATO.

Set up superannuation

To make superannuation payments straight to your employees' super funds, you'll need to set up Pay Super. It's simple, fast and SuperStream compliant, so it keeps your employees happy and keeps you in the good books with the ATO.

Pay Super is included with your MYOB subscription, so there's no additional charges.

For all the details, see Set up Pay Super.

How Pay Super works

1. Get set up

Sign up for Pay Super and tell us which bank account you want to make super payments from. We'll get you to verify the account so we know it’s really you.

Finally, you'll need to check that your fund and employee details are complete and correct.

2. Process your pays

Process your pays as usual.

Superannuation will be calculated and tracked for you automatically when you record employee pays.

3. Make a super payment

When you're ready to make a payment to your employees' funds, you just select the contribution amounts to pay, authorise the payment, and you're done!

Provide new employees with a Superannuation standard choice form so they can provide you with their super fund details.

Set up Single Touch Payroll reporting

Single Touch Payroll (STP) is a simple way to report your employees’ payroll information to the ATO and keep your business compliant. It’s included with your MYOB subscription, so there's no additional charges.

There are two parts to setting up STP:

Check your MYOB details
Notify the ATO you're ready to start reporting

For all the details, see Setting up Single Touch Payroll reporting.

What's next?

That's it—you're now ready to pay your employees! To keep track of your payroll information, take a look at the payroll reports. And when the end of the payroll year comes around, thanks to STP there's not much you need to do.

Personalise your pay slip emails

If you haven't already, add your own touches to the pay slip emails you send your employees on pay day. Just click your business name and go to Payroll settings > Pay slip email defaults.