Information about FiveStar Payroll Pro and the End of the Financial Year.

 

The topics below are:
- Before you rollover to the new year
- How to rollover to the new year
- KiwiSaver ESCT rate
- Increase in minimum wage (the figures are for April 2016 - similar principles will apply for future years if the minimum changes)
- When a pay period starts in March and ends in April

 

 

Before you rollover to the new year

Payroll Pro will automatically rollover to the new financial year when you enter a Pay Date of 1 April or later.

 

But before you enter a pay date for April, we do suggest you print a copy of the Holiday Pay Balances report, as it is possible your accountant might want to use this for calculating holiday pay liability. It would also be a good idea to print a copy of the Sick Leave Balances report in case your accountant requires this.
We also suggest you print the Year To Date Report for Employees and the Company before rolling over.

 

Note that nothing is deleted when the financial year changes, so you can print a report later for the year to date totals if you forget to do this. All the pay history records are kept. Printing past years Year To Date totals is easy – you can just use the Pay History Report and select the range of dates which you require.
This is not so easy with Holiday Pay and Sick Leave balances since they can change each pay period.

 

So those reports again are:
> Holiday Pay Balances
> Sick Leave Balances
> Year To Date Totals
You can find these by clicking on Reports from the main menu, and then you will see the options when the reports menu appears.

 

In the past we used to suggest making a special copy of the payroll data before rolling over. However because no information is deleted during the rollover, this is not essential. Some people like to make an extra backup - a special end of year backup to a flash drive - before changing the date to the new financial year, and keep this backup for future reference. If you would like to do this but forget to do it before rolling over, that is ok - just make the backup after rolling over, since all the information will still be there.

 

 

How to rollover to the new year

Payroll Pro will automatically rollover to the new financial year when you enter a Pay Date of 1 April or later.
When you do this (just in the usual way under the "Change Date" option), simply follow the prompts which appear.
> You will see a confirmation prompt – click "Yes".
> You will then see a box with buttons saying "More Information" and "Click here to print the Year To Date totals".
> The "More Information" shows a summary of what you are reading here.
> If you have not printed all the reports you would like to print, click on the next button "Click here to print the Year To Date totals".
> To change the year, click on "YES – Rollover To New Year".
> You will get a message advising that the date has been changed. Click OK.
That's all there is to it.

 

 

KiwiSaver ESCT Rate

(ESCT is the tax on the Employers Contribution to KiwiSaver)

 

For employees enrolled in KiwiSaver:

For the first pay after 1st April, you will click the button "To Be Paid This Payrun" as usual, to set the employee to be paid.

If the employee is enrolled in KiwiSaver, a confirmation box will appear.

Payroll Pro will use the employees total gross earned up to 31st March to determine the ESCT rate to use (as per IRD's formula), and you can simply click the "Yes" button to confirm this.

That is all there is to it.

 

There might be special cases where you have made your own calculation, and do not think the suggested ESCT rate is the one to use, so you will be able to click "No" and choose your own rate.

If you are not sure, then you probably won't want to make your own calculation, so will just press the YES button to accept the suggested rate.

 

Alternatively, you can just go into the "Add & Edit Employees" option and enter the ESCT rate there, but don't do this until Payroll Pro has rolled over to the new financial year. The rollover to the new financial year happens automatically when you enter a pay date of 1st April or later.

 

 

Increase in minimum wage from 1 April 2016

The information below relates to the changes from 1 April 2016, however the same principles apply for future years changes.

 

Adult Minimum Wage - 1 April 2016 - increases from $14.75 per hour to $15.25 per hour.
Starting-Out Wage (80% of adult minimum wage) - 1 April 2015 - increases from $11.80 per hour to $12.20.
Training Minimum Wage (80% of adult minimum wage) - 1 April 2015 - increases from $11.80 per hour to $12.20.
The rates above are gross pay (before tax).

 

The following web pages will be of help:

Employers Assistance - minimum wage NZ: www.employers.co.nz/minimum-wage-new-zealand.aspx

Also see the "Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment" (previously the Labour Department) website. This may or may not have been updated with the latest rates when you receive this email – if they still show $14.25 as the minimum adult wage then they have not yet updated their site:

MBIE - minimum wage: www.employment.govt.nz/hours-and-wages/pay/minimum-wage/?url=/er/pay/minimumwage/

To change rates in Payroll Pro
The new rates apply from 1 April, but can be used from the start of a pay period which starts in April and ends in March if you as the employer wish to do so.
In Payroll Pro you can use two different pay rates in the same pay period. Please see the following page on our website which explains this:
Changing or Adding an hourly rate, and changing a rate part way through a pay period:

For Payroll Pro version 2: Change or Add an Hourly Rate

For Payroll Pro version 1: Change or Add an Hourly Rate

 

 

When a pay period starts in March and ends in April

1. If you have any employees currently being paid less than the new minimum wage, then you will need to ensure the new minimum is used for the days worked in April – please see the section above for details. Even if an employee's rate changes part way through the pay period, you still treat the whole pay as included in the totals for the new financial year – see paragraph 3 below.

2. Otherwise, for employees who are already on at least the new minimum wage, there is nothing special you need to do here - see paragraph 3 below.

3. If your pay period spans the change in financial year, you do not split the pay up. Just carry on as usual - the totals are simply included in the totals for the new financial year. This is correct and is what the IRD require.
Example: The Pay Period starts 21 March, and finishes 3 April. The employee works 8 hours per day Monday to Friday, so worked 56 hours in March and 24 hours in April. In this example let's say you are paying the employee on 3 April. It does not matter that the employee worked some of this pay period in March – all the pay is counted as April by the IRD. This is a good thing – it would be very complicated to have to split everything up and have two short pay runs!