Superannuation ATO reporting category - still a bit confused!

[Penny_Accounts]

Hi, 

I am still a bit confused about assigning ATO categories to superannuation.

Our company pays 10% SGC, which is straightforward to assign. We then also offer employees an additional 5% super if they salary sacrifice 5% of gross wages.

We then have two employees who, in addition to the 5%, also contribute a fixed amount of wages per week ($40 and $90 respectively). Plus two more employees who contribute a fixed amount of $20 per week, but do not contribute 5% as well. For those employees, the company matches that $20 contribution, but does not match the extra $40 and $90 as we already match the salary sacrifice of 5%.

The part that is confusing me, is that we report the Salary Sacrifice (5%) as RESC and the employer additional (5%) as superannuation guarantee. However, while we can report the Additional Employer Other ($20) as RESC we can not report the Employee additional fixed $20. It is auto set at Not reportable and can not be changed.

Would that be correct? We are reporting employees extra super contributions, but only when it's 5% of wages?

Past end of year group certificates or payroll summaries have shown for the employees who contribute 5% salary sacrifice, RESC of an amount equal to their 5% salary sacrifice plus the 5% employer additional. The RESC was blank for the employees contributing the fixed amount of $20 per week.

Please see below for the categories we are using, as I am confused as to whether the payroll categories should be changed (or not) before I assign the ATO category.

NAME	TYPE	LISTING	ATO CATEGORY
Additional Employer Other	Employer Additional	Expense	Reportable Employer Super Contribution
Employee Additional Fixed $20	Employee Additional	Deduction	Not Reportable
Employee Additional Fixed $40	Employee Additional	Deduction	Not Reportable
Employee Additional Fixed $90	Employee Additional	Deduction	Not Reportable
Employer Additional 5%	Superannuation Guarantee	Expense	Superannuation Guarantee
Employer SGC	Superannuation Guarantee	Expense	Superannuation Guarantee
Salary Sacrifice	Salary Sacrifice	Deduction	Reportable Employer Super Contribution

I hope this is clear, and thanks for your help.

[Penny_Accounts]

After discussing with my accountant today, we have decided that Employer additional 5% which is used to match employee salary sacrifice contributions should be set as Employer additional (payroll category) and then RESC (STP category).

However it looks like I can not change the payroll category from superannuation guarantee to employer additional - it is greyed out and unchangable.

We would like to change it to Employer additional - RESC because when payment summaries are generated online in 2019 we don't want the ATO to add the 10% actual SGC to the 5% matching of salary sacrifice as it would look like some employees are being paid 15% SGC and then only 5% as a salary sacrifice / RESC.

Does anyone know how I can fix this? 

[Haydes · Accepted solution]

Hi @Penny_Accounts

The Superannuation Guarantee Contribution Type is hard locked to use Superannuation Guarantee as the ATO reporting Category and the Contribution Type cannot be changed once it has been set, this is by default to any SGC categories in AccountRight.

For your situation, I have seen a similar type of issue before and I detailed a few options and what to do with that in a different post, I suggest reading over my reply to this thread: STP Additional Employer Super ATO reporting category

Please let us know if you have any questions on that.

[Penny_Accounts]

Thanks @Haydes

As I can't change the contribution type at the moment, I think I will do as you suggested and make the new payroll category without assigning it to any employees, then switch over on Monday.