Your end-of-financial-year payroll checklist

The upcoming end of the financial year means it’s time to ensure all your employee payroll and super records are accurate and up to date. Keeping on top of reporting means you can meet your legal obligations and ensure a smooth year-end for your business and employees. Here's a handy checklist for this hectic time of year.

PAYG

• Ensure this year’s pay data is cut off after the last pay to be received by staff by 30 June 2026.

• Check and delete any tax variations ceasing as of 30 June 2026.

• Enter any new tax variations applying from 1 July 2026.

• Revise termination worksheets used for redundancies to the new tax-free limits and employment termination payment (ETP) cap.

• Take care: if an employee’s terminated by 30 June but paid on or after 1 July, the new rates and thresholds apply.

• Review staff who left in 2025–2026, particularly after 31 March 2026, checking whether they’ll have reportable fringe benefits (RFB) for the 2026–2027 income year. If so, you need to maintain their Single Touch Payroll (STP) record and complete the RFB field at next income year-end.

• Identify any RFB amounts exceeding the disclosure threshold. Where disclosure applies, consider giving employees a written explanation to minimise queries about income statements.

• Check that any staff overpayments are reversed out of wages and coded as loans before finalising in STP.

• Ensure wages appear in the correct income year. Payments arriving on or after 1 July 2026 should appear in the 2026–2027 income year.

• Submit STP annual reporting by selecting the final event indicator to “true” for all staff by 14 July 2026.

• Review changes to pay rates or salary sacrifice arrangements applying from 1 July. Award rate increases usually apply to the first full pay from 1 July.

• Review whether 2026–2027 may result in 53 weekly pays or 27 fortnightly pays, in which case staff can elect to have additional tax withheld. This may also affect super, including salary sacrifices, for staff tracking the concessional limit ($32,500 for 2026–2027).

• Update your payroll software for the PAYG withholding tax tables applying from 1 July 2026.

Superannuation

• Note that the super guarantee rate remains 12% for the 2026–2027 income year.

• Ensure reportable employer superannuation contributions appear correctly at the STP reportable employer super contributions (RESC) field.

• Check whether the maximum super contribution base applies to high-income employees. For 2026–2027, with payday super, this base becomes an annual figure of $270,830 in qualifying earnings.

• Ensure payroll software, clearing house and super payment processes can support payday super from 1 July 2026. From then, you must pay employees’ super guarantee on payday, to be received by their super funds within seven business days, unless an extended timeframe applies.

• The April to June 2026 quarter remains in the existing quarterly super system.

• Make sure June quarter super is paid in time to meet 30 June for tax deductibility and 28 July for super guarantee obligations.

Payroll tax and WorkCover

• Review which states and territories staff are employed in and make sure you have the appropriate payroll tax and WorkCover registrations in place.

• File a copy of the lodged FBT return to use for payroll tax and WorkCover annual returns. Revenue authorities will usually request it during audits.

• Obtain details of any contractor arrangements to be included.

• Note any changes in required payroll tax and WorkCover declarations for the new financial year.

• If the business is part of a group of employers for payroll tax purposes, check if entities have left or joined the group.

• Review payroll tax office websites and state/territory budget announcements for rebates or incentives available in each jurisdiction.