On July 1, 2018, the ATO requires all Australian businesses with more than 20 employees to use Single Touch Payroll. The census date is actually in April 2018. Users of MYOB Account Right Premier face an interesting problem. They are using software which doesn't really get feature updates because MYOB is encouraging subscribers to move to Account Right Live, a monthly-subscription product. This product was called Account Right Live for a few years. MYOB now calls it AccountRight, and calls the legacy product AccountRight Classic.

Account Right (Live) is not available as an upgrade for legacy MYOB users, because the new product does not have quite all the features of the existing product (although this may change). There may be other reasons it does not appeal: it requires a Windows computer. It can store data in the "cloud", but it's is often too slow and larger businesses are most likely going to revert to local data, which means you basically have your old MYOB, with all the funny limitations and dated reporting. Many businesses have stayed with legacy MYOB because they can't use AccountRight (Live) or don't find it worth the effort of changing.

The end of the road is approaching for AccountRight Classic, no doubt. However, if you are a diehard old-MYOBer, there is a solution which means you can stay with legacy AccountRight Classic at least for a little bit longer. 

What is the ATO's Single Touch Payroll?

Single Touch Payroll is an electronic submission of PAYG and Superannuation data per employee, to be provided every time a payroll payment is made. 

Put simply, the end of year summary of data per employee is being replaced with real-time submissions, in electronic format. 

The ATO assumes that businesses will use compliant software, such as Xero and MYOB's 'cloud' products.

There are many businesses which still use the old MYOB, known for a long time as Account Right Premier or Account Right Enterprise, and more recently renamed to Account Right Classic.

MYOB has an information page here: https://www.myob.com/au/support/single-touch-payroll

User of Account Right Classic: MYOB advice is

M-Powered Payment users (on AccountRight Classic v19) who use multi-currency or any other AccountRight Classic feature that prevents them from moving to the latest version have been granted an extension to their Single Touch Payroll (STP) deferral until 30 Sept 2019 using the deferral number 43 164 997. Contact your Partner Manager or MYOB Community Forum if you have any questions."

 

Otherwise, MYOB offers only a move to the current product.

How to do Single Touch Payroll upload for legacy MYOB

We have been advised that John Pacey of Link Strategic Services (http://linkstrategic.com.au Ph: 0412 916 386) offers a cheap service to upload desktop Account Right MYOB data to the ATO: with a simple and standard export of a MYOB report, John will prepare a compliant file you can lodge to a provider such as http://www.singletouch.com.au.

Is it time to upgrade? Consider your choices

Read our review of Cloud Accounting packages to help make a decision about whether to move to Xero, QuickBooks Online or the "cloud" version of MYOB Account Right Live. Not to give away the ending, but Xero is rapidly growing market share in most places it operates, and it is the leader in Australia and New Zealand already.