IR Payday Filing - What You Need to Know

If you’re employing staff, you’ve probably heard that PAYE filing is going digital under Inland Revenue’s “Payday Filing” scheme. Here’s what you need to know.

Are you Affected?

All Kiwi employers will be required to move to Payday Filing by 1 April 2019. If you have staff now, or will do next year, read on!

If you're one of our savvy customers, you can skip this article. PaySauce's Payday Filing is already up and running, and you won’t have to lift a finger to stay compliant on 1 April. Good for you.

What’s New?

The Employer Monthly Schedule (EMS) you currently send in once a month (or twice if you’re a large employer) will be replaced with filing payroll information every payday. Yep, that means more filing.

If you’re paying over $50,000 PAYE and Employer Superannuation Contribution Tax (ESCT) per year, you’ll have to go digital - no more paper returns. You’ll need to file your return within two working days from payday.

If you’re under the $50,000 threshold, and prefer to do things manually, you can stick with paper (though we don’t recommend it). You’ll have 10 working days to file.

If you can’t get reliable internet, you’ll have an extra five business days to take care of payday reporting.

You’ll also need to keep Inland Revenue up to date on new and departing employees. They already know about your existing ones, so nothing new to do there.

What’s Next?

If you’re calculating pays and filing PAYE manually, your admin workload is about to go up. It might be time to consider using a service that takes this off your plate.

If you’re already using payroll software, or your accountant handles your pays, talk to your provider and make sure they’ll be ready by 1 April next year. Some aren’t making the leap, so you may want to look at alternatives.

PaySauce handles the lot

PaySauce is cloud payroll that you can run from a laptop or smartphone wherever you are. It includes digital timesheets and payslips, the standard payroll calculations you’d expect, and automated banking and PAYE filing. We look after all types of businesses, but almost half our customers are farmers.

If you need to make a change to the way you handle timesheets, payroll, or PAYE filing, call us for a chat or register now.

For a more in depth read on payday filing click here to go to the IRD website.

Logan Tyson

Head of Growth & Partnerships