Allowances List in your Payroll Software

Your Payroll Software by Elite can process your pays in a fraction of the time taken to process them manually.

Allowances can be used for items such as uniform allowances, car allowances, meal allowances, etc.

Adding an allowance

1 From the Lists menu, choose Allowances.

2 To add an allowance, click Allowances>New.

3 Enter a name for the allowance under Allowance Name.

4 Calculate Super on Allowance – Select this option þ if the allowance is to be included in superannuation calculations.

5 Tax Exempt Allowance – Select this option þ if the allowance is not subject to PAYG. Whether an allowance is tax-exempt or not depends on a number of factors, including the type of allowance, the amount, and the income of the payee. For full details, see Taxation of allowances.

 Examples of tax-exempt allowances include:

 Cents per kilometre car expense payments using ATO rates up to 5000 business kilometres.

 Award transport payments for deductible transport expenses.

 Overtime meal allowances up to a reasonable amount (as determined by the ATO)

 Laundry (not dry cleaning) allowance for deductible clothing up to a reasonable amont (currently $150, but subject to change)

Payroll Software Tax Exempt Allowance – Select this option þ if the allowance is Payroll Software tax-exempt.

WorkCover Exempt Allowance – Select þ this option if the allowance is exempt from WorkCover.

Payment Summaries display options – From the drop-down list, select where the allowance should be displayed in the employee's payment summary—in the Allowances section, the Gross section, or not displayed at all. To determine where the allowance should be shown on the Payment Summary, and if taxable or not, see Taxation of allowances.

6 Click the Amount tab.

7 If the allowance is a fixed dollar value, click Fixed Amount and enter the dollar value.

8 If the allowance is based on a percentage, click Percentage.

 Next, enter the percentage amount next to Percentage.

 Finally, select what the allowance is a percentage of by clicking the button to the right of Based On. For example, select Wages then the allowance dollar value will be a percentage of the total wages for the pay it is placed in.

Note  To base an allowance on hours paid, instead of a percentage of the amount paid, you must set this up in the employee record or in the Pay details window. For details, see How do I pay an allowance based on the number of hours worked?

9 Click the Threshold tab. The threshold value is the maximum allowance amount that can be paid before being subject to Payroll Software Tax or WorkCover, or being displayed on Payment Summaries. If a threshold does not apply, skip this step.

Calculate When Greater Than – Depending on the options selected below, allowances under the threshold amount won't be displayed on Payment Summaries, or won't be subject to Payroll Software Tax or WorkCover.

þ Payroll Software Tax – Select this option if Payroll Software Tax does not apply to allowances under the threshold amount.

þ WorkCover – Select this option if WorkCover does not apply to allowances under the threshold amount.

þ   Payment Summaries – Select this option if you only want the allowance to display in Payment Summaries when over the threshold amount. When this option is selected, any allowances under the threshold amount won't be included in the Gross Payments or Allowances section of the payment summary. Note that this only affects how the allowance is displayed, not whether it is taxable or not.

10 Click OK.

Editing an allowance

To edit an allowance, select the allowance you wish to change and then click Allowances>Edit. Make any required changes on the Update Allowances window.

When you make changes to an allowance, Elite Payroll Software will ask if you want to also make these changes to any employee records or awards that use the allowance. Previous pays using the allowance won't be affected.

Deleting an allowance

The Delete button is disabled and you won't be able to delete the allowance, unless you first remove the allowance from any employee records or pays that use the allowance.

To delete an allowance, select the allowance, click Allowances>Delete and then click OK to confirm that you want to delete the allowance.

Viewing Reports

Click Reports for a list of related reports.