In mid Jan 2017 the ATO released new Payment Summary specifications v12.0.0 to incorporate payments to Working Holiday Makers as well as changes to Fringe Benefits reporting. These changes were to apply only to those employers affected, that is employers who made payments under the new Working Holiday Maker provisions (see here) and those who paid Exempt Fringe Benefits to their employees. Unaffected employers could continue to use existing compliant specifications (v9 and higher).

However in mid Feb 2017 the ATO yielded to pressure from software developers and released specification v12.0.1 (see extract here) which shows for 2017 Payment Summaries v5.3.0 is required and for the PSAR or EMPDUPE file v12.0.0 or v12.0.1 is required.

The change from v12.0.0 means the changes apply to ALL employers. So whether you make payments to Working Holiday Makers or not, the Payment Summaries generated by any existing MYOB® product (Classic v19.13 or earlier and Live AR2016.3 or earlier) will not comply with the published ATO Specifications for the 2016/17 financial year Payment Summaries.



Note: Despite the earlier announcements, the ATO made a last minute change for the 2016/17 year payment summaries, providing a 'grace' period. They will allow employers NOT affected by the changes to continue to use their old payment summary software for the 2016/17 year only. For the 2017/18 payment summaries all employers must comply with Specifications 12 or 13.

If your version of MYOB® is v19.13 or lower (or AR2016.3 or lower for .myox) the payment summaries generated by your software will not be compliant, nor will the empdupe file generated.

Payment Summaries for 2017/18
Those employers who want to keep using their existing version of MYOB® will be pleased to know there is an alternative to a $1104 update from MYOB Aust. We recommend using EMPDUPE Maker from Namich to ensure your payment summaries and EMPDUPE file comply with the lastest Specifications. The current cost of this program is $65 and more details are available here.

This program will allow you to open the EMPDUPE file generated by your existing version of MYOB®, make changes for the employees affected, and generate new Payment Summaries and a new EMPDUPE file that comply with ATO Specifications v13.0. The program can also be used to generate Amended Payment Summaries.

Namich has just released (Jun 2018) an updated version of EMPDUPE Maker (Release 5) to support the new Payment Summary requirements. Click here to see what the Specification 12 and 13 Payment Summaries (v5.3.0) will look like.