Is Your Employer Actually Doing What They're Supposed To?
A Guide to Checking Single Touch Payroll

We keep seeing the same pattern with clients who work for small employers: payslips that look fine, but a nagging feeling that something behind the scenes isn't quite right. Often it isn't, but often enough, it is. Here's what's actually meant to be happening, and exactly how to check it yourself in under five minutes.

Single Touch Payroll isn't optional, and hasn't been for years

Single Touch Payroll (STP) is the system that requires employers to report wages, tax withheld and related payroll information to the ATO every time they run payroll, rather than once a year. It's been mandatory for every employer in Australia, regardless of size, since 1 July 2019, there's no small-business exemption. The only real carve-out applies to a narrow group of employers using a Withholding Payer Number instead of an ABN, and even they're only exempt until mid-2033. The more detailed version of this reporting (STP Phase 2, which itemises income into categories like overtime, allowances and bonuses rather than one lump figure) has been fully in force since the 2025–26 financial year. If you're working as a regular employee anywhere in Australia, your employer should already be reporting every pay run; this isn't a “some small businesses get a pass” situation.

Why it's about to matter even more

From 1 July 2026, the rules tighten further. Under the new “payday super” changes, employers will need to make sure your super actually lands in your fund within 7 business days of payday, a big shift from the old quarterly cycle, where a business could fall months behind before anything looked obviously wrong. Employers who are already loose with their reporting obligations are about to have a lot less room to also be loose with actually paying your super on time.

The catch: reporting and paying are two different things

Here's the bit that trips people up. An employer can report your wages and tax withheld through STP perfectly correctly, meaning your payslip and your ATO records both look fine; while still being late, or short, on actually remitting what they've withheld or paying your super. Reporting and payment run on separate tracks, with separate enforcement. A tidy-looking payslip tells you what your employer says is happening. It doesn't confirm the money has actually moved.

How to check both, yourself, in a few minutes

You need two different checks, because two different parties are doing the reporting.

1. Wages and tax withheld, log into myGov, go to ATO online services, and select Employment. This shows your STP income statement, updated after every pay run.
   
   
2. Super actually received, in the same ATO online services, go to Super → Information → Employer contributions. This shows the year-to-date total your super fund has told the ATO it has actually received, and you can drill into Transactions to see each individual payment. This is the more important of the two checks, because it's reported by your fund, not your employer, it tells you money has genuinely landed, not just that a promise has been logged somewhere.

If something's missing

If your Employer Contributions screen is empty, well behind where it should be, or your income statement isn't updating with your pay runs, there's a direct next step: the ATO has an online tool specifically for reporting unpaid super, and you can go back up to six years. Employers who don't pay super in full, on time, and to the right fund become liable for the Super Guarantee Charge; which includes interest and administration components and, unlike ordinary super contributions, isn't fully tax-deductible. It's a considerably worse outcome for the employer than simply paying correctly in the first place, which is exactly why most compliant businesses just do it properly.

Where to start

If you've checked and something doesn't add up - or you're just not sure what you're looking at - it's worth a conversation before you do anything else. Getting the sequence wrong (contacting an employer directly, lodging a report, chasing a fund) can complicate what's often a straightforward fix. Get in touch and we'll help you work out what's actually going on before you take the next step.

Funded Futures Financial Services Socials