What is a pay event?¶

A pay event is the report you send to the ATO when you pay your staff. In the Single Touch Payroll (STP) rules it is called the Submit action. You lodge it on or before the date the payment is made.

The pay event does two jobs. It reports the details for each employee you paid, and it reports the totals for the whole business.

In one line

A pay event is the Submit action — lodged on or before payday — carrying each employee's year-to-date amounts and the business's own totals.

Why this matters¶

The pay event is the main STP report you send week to week. Knowing what it carries helps you understand why the figures are year-to-date, and why the same amounts keep appearing in every report.

What you will learn¶

What a pay event (Submit action) is
What it reports for each employee and for the business
Why year-to-date amounts keep being reported

Understanding the concept¶

For each employee paid, the pay event carries their identity, their employment conditions, and their year-to-date (YTD) figures: payments, tax withheld (PAYG withholding, or PAYGW), deductions, and super.

Because the figures are year-to-date, once an amount has been reported it keeps being reported in later pay events, even if it has not changed.

The pay event also carries the payer totals — the totals for the business, not year-to-date. These are the gross salary or wages (BAS label W1) and the PAYG withholding (BAS label W2) for everyone included in that pay event.

For accountants & bookkeepers

The ATO confirms the Submit action is lodged on or before the date of payment, reports payee identity, employment conditions, YTD payments, tax withheld, deductions and super for each payee, and also the Payer Total Amounts (not YTD) for W1 (gross) and W2 (PAYGW). A submit action may also include payees not in the pay run to address other payee reporting fixes.

Example¶

Priya pays three staff this fortnight and lodges the pay event on payday. For each of the three, the report shows their year-to-date pay, tax, deductions and super — not just this fortnight. Alongside those, the pay event reports the business totals: the combined gross wages (W1) and the combined PAYGW (W2) for the people in that pay.

Common mistakes¶

Reporting only the current pay — a pay event carries year-to-date totals.
Stopping a figure once it is reported — YTD amounts keep being reported each time.
Confusing the payer totals with year-to-date — the W1 and W2 totals are for that pay event, not the whole year.

How this works in myaccountant¶

In the app — you lodge a pay event with the Submit action from the pay-run screen. myaccountant builds the report from your pay run, including each employee's year-to-date amounts and the business's W1 and W2 totals.

Key points¶

A pay event is the STP Submit action.
You lodge it on or before the date the payment is made.
It carries each employee's YTD pay, tax, deductions and super.
Year-to-date amounts keep being reported, even when unchanged.
It also carries the business totals: W1 (gross) and W2 (PAYGW).

Learn next¶

General information only — not tax, super or financial advice.

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