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End of the financial year: Tax changes, reporting and Easter
For many businesses, the end of the financial year is nigh.
If you’re anything like us, you’ll be busily working through the March madness getting ready to welcome 1 April and FY25. We also know that for some businesses, your financial year end is still a few months away - but you’ve still got the changes to be aware of that take effect from 1 April for all.
There’s always a lot going on as we roll towards the end of the financial year, and we know it can feel overwhelming! The good news is that from a payroll perspective, there really isn’t anything to worry about. Changes are coming, true, but aside from minimum wage it really is all taken care of for you.
We’ll go over some of those changes here just so you can stay informed, but remember, you can always contact our Support team if you need a hand.
Tax changes
One of the most common questions we get after 1 April is “My employee's pay rate hasn’t changed, so why is the net amount they’re now receiving different?”
There are two main culprits for the change to the net amount:
ACC earner levy: this is currently 1.53% and is increasing to 1.6% from 1 April 2024. The maximum amount that the earner levy is deducted from is also increasing, from $139,384 in FY24, to $142,283 for FY25. That means employees will see a small increase in the amount of tax that is deducted, so what ends up in their bank account will be slightly less. In the pay run and in payslips, you just see an amount for PAYE which includes the ACC earner levy amount - it doesn’t show separately (but you can find it as a separate amount in reports if you need to).
If you pay your employees by automatic payment, you’ll need to change these payments accordingly. If we take care of your banking, you obviously don’t need to do a thing! Just another reason to let us take care of your payments for you 😉
Student loan: student loan repayments are deducted at 12% of all earnings over a threshold amount in each pay period. The threshold is increasing from $22,828 to $24,128 as of 1 April, so the amount of student loan deduction will change too.
For the same amount of pay received before tax, employees actually have a smaller student loan repayment to make - because the threshold that student loan is not deducted from is increased.
Here’s a table showing what that looks like in pay run amounts for someone earning $70,000 per year, with the column on the right showing how the student loan amount would change in that period (even though the amount before tax has not changed).
| Pay frequency | Weekly | Fortnightly | Monthly |
| Example gross pay | $1,346.15 | $2,692.31 | $5,833.33 |
| FY24 repayment threshold (SL not deducted from this amount) | $439 | $878 | $1,902.33 |
| In FY24, earnings over threshold (SL deducted at 12% from this amount) | $907.15 | $1,814.31 | $3,931 |
| FY25 repayment threshold (SL not deducted from this amount) | $464 | $928 | $2,010 |
| In FY25, earnings over threshold (SL deducted at 12% from this amount) | $882.15 | $1,764.31 | $3,823.33 |
| Change in SL deduction between tax years | -$3.00 | -$6.00 | -$12.92 |
Obviously, PaySauce updates automatically so there’s nothing for you to worry about. If your employees ask about why their net amount has changed, you can point them at this page to understand why!
Minimum wage increase
The minimum wage will increase to $23.15 per hour from 1st April. You’ll need to make sure your employees are being paid this amount for any work done from the 1st April onwards (including the 1st).
The starting-out/training wage is also increasing, as it is set as 80% of the minimum wage. This is increasing to $18.52.
If you have employees on less than $23.15 per hour in PaySauce, you will need to update their pay rates.
Don’t worry, changing pay rates in PaySauce is super straightforward: but here’s some articles to help if you need.
Just in case you didn’t know, we have a great feature for topping up to the minimum wage if you have instances where your salaried workers might, due to the hours worked, be earning less than minimum wage unless they were paid extra in that period.
If you want to check that out, there are some great resources in our knowledge base or get in touch with our Support team.
If you’re already using our top up feature and using adult minimum wage, then this will also automatically updated for you on the 1st April. Yay!
What about the living wage?
The living wage is set later in the year. It is currently set at $26 per hour and isn’t changing on 1 April - keep an eye out for announcements later in the year.
Easter
The dates that Easter holidays are observed this year clash directly with the end of the financial year. Just making an already busy time of year even busier!
The Easter public holidays that are observed are Good Friday and Easter Monday.
Easter Sunday is not a public holiday but is a restricted trading day.
We have tons of information about public holidays for you in our knowledge base, here’s a few of them that will help you out here:
- Article: Paying for Easter holidays
- Article: Applying public holidays
- Video: Recording public holidays
Remember, payment files won’t be processed on the public holidays.
Ending the (financial) year in style
While you might have lots of other requirements for the end of the financial year, you don’t need to do anything special for payroll.
Staff might ask you for an end of year tax certificate, or you might want to give them one. If you want to do that, you can get them by going to the reports section in PaySauce and choosing YTD Earnings, then download the zip file that gives you all the individual employee certificates.
Other than that, there isn’t anything you must do or that your employees need to do in payroll either. PaySauce will recognise the end of the financial year that is set for your company and start recording earnings in the new year.
Something else your accountant might ask you for a bit later on is the details of the leave that was paid in the 63 days following the end of the financial year.
Getting this info in PaySauce is super easy - just go to reports, then look for the 63 day report (it is near the bottom of the list). Enter the date you want the 63 date range to start from, and you’re good to go.
Anything else?
A number of changes come into effect on 1 April, it is a common time for tax changes to come into effect. While we did hear a lot of talk politically on changes to income tax, there are no confirmed changes for this upcoming tax year starting 1 April 2024.
A number of other changes are taking place, such as changes to superannuation payments, benefits, working for families tax credits and so on. None of these changes impact your payroll processing, so there’s no need to worry there.
Take care of yourself
We know that the end of the financial year brings additional pressures to your already busy lives, and chucking in changes like minimum wage and public holidays can be stressful to manage on top of everything else.
We’ve got you covered - it is super easy to manage in PaySauce, and at least you can not worry so much about payroll processing and focus on the other things that matter.
If things are really getting on top of you and you feel like you aren’t coping with the stress, there’s plenty of great support options for you out there.
- Try the government's e-Learning series for small business owners
- If you use Xero, you can use their Xero Assistance Programme
- Check out the resources and services available from First Steps
- We think this is a great article on thriving for business owners
Jessica McLean
CPO - PaySauce
CPO - PaySauce