The Payroll, Transactions, End of Year, Change Tax Year is used to close the current tax year and open the new one. When the tax year is changed, period end dates for what is now the previous financial year are cleared and only the first period end date for the new financial year is displayed.
After the tax year is changed, pay period values from previous tax years can still be accessed through selected reports.
Important:
This information relates to clearing the 2024-2025 financial year to move to the 2025-2026 financial year.
This should be your last step for your current financial year process.
To use the SGL Percentage Change feature, you must upgrade to version 9.4 SP1 BEFORE Change Tax Year is run.
You must back up your database before completing the Change Tax Year process.
Current Tax Year
The current tax year will show as Start Date, 1/7/2024 and End Date, 30/6/2025.
Reset Tax Variation Date
An employee will have a Variation Valid Date recorded when they have been granted a withholding variation by the ATO to reduce the amount of tax withheld from their pay. A Variation Valid Date can only be entered when the employee has a specified tax rate, i.e., their Tax Type is set to Specify Rate and a value is entered in the Tax Rate field.
The Variation Valid Date records the expiry date of the withholding variation. If an employee requires an extension of the variation past that date, they must submit a new request to the ATO.
If you run Change Tax Year with the Reset Tax Variation Date checkbox ticked, the Variation Valid Date for any employee who has one recorded will be automatically updated from the current financial year to the new one, e.g. from 30 June 2025 to 30 June 2026.
Before you start processing pays in the new financial year, make sure that you have confirmed the withholding variation status of all employees with a current Variation Valid Date. If they are no longer entitled to a withholding variation, you should update their Tax Details, so they are on the correct tax rate and the Variation Valid Date is removed.
The Payroll, Reports, End of Year, Tax Details Report includes details of any employee with a Variation Valid Date. If you did not keep a copy of the report when you printed it as part of your EOY preparation, you may wish to print it again now. You could also customise the Employees grid to add the Variation Date column. This column will contain the date for any employee who has a Variation Valid Date recorded.
For more information about withholding variations, refer to www.ato.gov.au. Search for the terms withholding declaration or enter Quick Code QC19428.
SGL Percentage Change
From 1 July 2025, the Superannuation Guarantee (SG) minimum percentage is increasing from 11.5% to 12%. The SGL Percentage Change feature in Change Tax Year reduces the amount of work you need to do by creating new 12% employer contributions and replacing the existing 11.5% contributions linked to active employees. This ensures that the new contributions are created after payroll processing for the current financial year is complete and before processing for the new year commences. You will need to assign a new Code and Description for each selected Employer Contribution.
Select OK once the above details have been reviewed to complete the process.
Confirm the Change Tax Year has occurred.
To confirm you have changed the tax year, go to Payroll, Maintenance, General, General Parameters and select the Tax Year tab.
After the change tax year has been completed for 2024-2025, you should see the details updated to 2025-2026, ready for your new financial year.
To check you have the correct pay end date for the first pay in the new financial year, go to Payroll, Maintenance, General, Pay Frequencies. You should see that all the previous financial year period end dates have been cleared and the first pay for the new financial year should be showing. This date should be 1 July 2025 or later. Double click into the Period End Date field and update if necessary and click OK to save.