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How do I finalise STP for end of financial year?

At the end of each financial year you finalise your employees through Single Touch Payroll (STP). This tells the ATO that their year-to-date figures are final and marks each employee's income statement as "Tax ready" in myGov — the step that lets them lodge their tax return. Their income statement appears in myGov within 1–2 days of finalising.

Step 1. Go to Payroll and open the STP Finalisation tab. (The Payroll Overview also shows an STP Finalisation summary card with how many employees are finalised — click Manage STP finalisation → to get to the same place.)

Step 2. Pick the financial year from the selector at the top right. It defaults to This Financial Year, so in July make sure you switch to the year you're finalising — for example FY 2025-26.

Step 3. Review each employee's totals in the Employee pay summary — year to date table: Gross Pay YTD, Tax Withheld YTD and Super YTD. The footer row shows the totals across all employees. For a detailed breakdown, click Full report →. Employees with no pay this year are hidden — tick Show employees with no pay this year if you need to see them (they have nothing to finalise, so they show a dash instead of a checkbox).

Step 4. Tick the checkbox in the STP Finalisation column for each employee you've checked. To select your whole roster at once, use the checkbox in the STP Finalisation column header.

Step 5. Click Finalise selected (N). (The button reads Select employees to finalise until you've ticked at least one employee.)

Step 6. A confirmation opens — Finalise N employees for FY 2025-26 — explaining that this sends the final figures to the ATO, that income statements will appear in myGov within 1–2 days, and that it can't be undone from the software.

Step 7. In the Declaration, check your Declarer name, tick I confirm this declaration is true and correct, and click Finalise.

Lodging for a client? If you're an accountant working in a client's payroll, the declaration also asks "Who is making this declaration?" — choose Lodge as registered agent (you declare) or Lodge as the business — client declares (enter the name of the person at the business making the declaration).

Step 8. You'll see "Submitted to ATO — waiting for processing result…" and the app checks with the ATO automatically for about a minute. If the ATO is still processing after that, you'll be asked to refresh in a minute to see the final status. When the ATO accepts it, finalised employees show a green Finalised badge with the date. If the ATO returns errors, a message tells you how many — open the pay run detail to see and fix them, then finalise again.

Checking what's been sent

The Finalisation activity list below the table shows every finalisation run for the selected year — how many employees, its status, when it was sent and by whom. Click a run to expand it and see the employees included and each submission attempt.

If pay changes after finalising

If you process more pay for a finalised employee (or correct their figures), their row shows an amber Needs re-send badge with how much each total has moved since last sent. Click Send update on that row — or re-tick the employee and finalise again — to send the ATO their updated final figures. Finalised employees always stay selectable so you can re-finalise after a change.

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