Jobkeeper Update

If you were eligible for Jobkeeper from the first fortnight you will notice that payments have started to arrive in your bank accounts.

We thought this would be a good opportunity to explain how to record these payments, when each fortnightly payment is due, other key dates and steps required going forward.

The ATO have put out documents detailing the processes required with recording the Jobkeeper Payment Scheme. They have specifically requested for the payments to be recorded in an income account called ‘Jobkeeper Subsidy’. This means that you will need to set up a new income account in the chart of accounts, that is under the income category and if you are GST registered, this is BAS excluded.

The fortnightly payments to employees are due within certain timeframes to ensure compliance with the ATO. Below are the payment due dates for each fortnight:

Fortnight 1, 2 and 3 payments had to be made to employees by 10th May to be eligible for these fortnights, so if they haven’t been paid, your employees will be ineligible for the first 3 fortnights.
Fortnight 4: 24th May 2020
Fortnight 5: 7th June 2020
Fortnight 6: 21st June 2020
Fortnight 7: 5th July 2020
Fortnight 8: 19th July 2020
Fortnight 9: 2nd August 2020
Fortnight 10: 16th August 2020
Fortnight 11: 30th August 2020
Fortnight 12: 13th September 2020
Fortnight 13: 27th September 2020

The other key dates to note are: 31st May – if you are an eligible participant intending to claim wages for April and May, you must enrol in Jobkeeper by the 31st of May14th of each month – once you have completed your monthly declaration each month, preferably between the 1st and 7th of the month, you will be expecting the Jobkeeper payment to be made into your account.Steps required going forward include the monthly declaration for all entities. This is required whether you are an eligible business participant or have employees.

If you have employees, you will be required to make the minimum $1500 gross payment (if tax free threshold is claimed this is equal to $1308 net) by the above dates. If you have employees, you are best to be STP compliant and include the relevant ATO codes as created by your software provider.

If you need help understanding the importance of these dates or creating the account to allocate Jobkeeper Payments, feel free to give us a call.

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