Terminology & Concepts (STP)

With the introduction of STP, we have introduced a number of new records and terminology you will need to be familiar with. Other than the definitions on this page, we recommend you also familiarise yourself with the ATO's STP Definitions of Terms.

Branch

Infinet Cloud Payroll supports multiple PAYG Branches per business (subsidiary/company). This means that at a minimum, you will have the default (1 / 001) branch for each subsidiary/company in your account and you will need to run the STP Setup Assistant for each Branch you are required to report via STP for. If you have registered multiple PAYG Branches with the ATO, then you will also need to create these additional branches and run the STP Setup Assistant separately for them.

Terminology & Concepts

Back to Single Touch Payroll (STP) Guide

ebMS Request

Each time the system communicates with the ATO it does this via an ebMS Request. This is a low-level system record that you will likely not need to deal with.

ebMS Queue

The ebMS Queue is the part that handles the automatic scheduling, sending and receiving of ebMS Requests. It runs in the background, mostly invisible and manages all the server communication with the ATO. This is a low-level system concept that you will likely not need to deal with.

Pay Event

Each STP submission to the ATO is named a (STP) Pay Event. A Pay Event always includes one or more Pay Event Employees. Pay Events can be one of two types:

Submit Pay Event: automatically created upon completion of a Pay Run. Includes Pay Run info including total PAYG withheld plus Employees from the Pay Run and their YTD financials.
Update Pay Event: can be manually created for specific employees at any time. Used for fixing, updating Employee YTD info, finalising employees for a year, etc.

Pay Event Employee

Each employee included in a Pay Event is considered a (STP) Pay Event Employee. The system creates these as seperate records for you to review information including YTD Financial values that are sent with each STP Submission.

Report STP

The action of creating a Pay Event and its Pay Event Employee child records using data from a Pay Run. The submission of this Pay Event will be automatically scheduled (see STP Submission).

STP Submission

Reporting via STP - the submission of a Pay Event and its Pay Event Employee child records - is automatically handled by the system. The submission of Pay Events is managed through the ebMS Queue system that runs in the background. Thus, submissions are scheduled for a specific day (typically the Pay Date) and an approximate time (as configured in the STP Setup Assistant). You can always check on the status of a submission by going to the relevant STP Pay Event record. The system will also send you email notifications upon success or a failure.

Please note that once a submission as happened, it may take the ATO anywhere from 30 minutes to a day to process it. Again, the system handles this process in the background allowing you to continue working as per normal.