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25/05/2017
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AUDIENCE
DATE
CLASSIFICATION
Error Handling options for
STP Payroll Events
TA210 - Logical Solution Architecture
Version 1.0
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Document Owner: eCommerce
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ENDORSEMENT/VERSION CONTROL
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25/05/2017
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25/05/2017 Vitaly Sidorenko
Summary of Change
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TA210 – Error Handling options for STP Payroll Events
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1
Introduction .................................................................................................................... 4
1.1
1.2
1.3
1.4
1.5
2
References ............................................................................................................. 4
Definitions ............................................................................................................... 4
Stakeholders ........................................................................................................... 4
Discussion History .................................................................................................. 5
Assumptions ........................................................................................................... 5
Error Hanlding Options................................................................................................... 6
2.1
2.2
2.3
2.4
Option 1 (Bulk) ........................................................................................................ 6
Option 2 (Batch in a Bulk) ....................................................................................... 8
Comparison of Behaviour...................................................................................... 10
Recommendation .................................................................................................. 11
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1
TA210 – Error Handling options for STP Payroll Events
INTRODUCTION
The current STP design has been taken up by a number of SWDs for the implementation
and it is currently based on the “BULK” processing pattern when the whole message is
rejected if at least one validation error is found in the request message.
The current production statistic for failed BDE payment summary lodgements shows about
5% validation error ratio which means a potential increase in the number of transmission
because the data for the failed transmissions needs to be fixed and lodged again.
Considering that STP is a very high volume initiative those additional “correction” relodgements will increase the overall number of transmissions.
In addition the “correction” process requiring Clients or Tax Agents to update errorred
Employee records and resubmit Payroll Event will result in reprocessing of it and in the delay
for Employee data to become available via ATO Online.
Based on those main reasons two different options for processing patterns have been
considered and presented in this document.
1.1
REFERENCES
N/A
1.2
DEFINITIONS
Term/
Acronym
Expanded
Definition
BDE
Bulk Data Exchange
ATO channel for bulk data processing.
SBR
Standard Business
Reporting
Whole of Government initiative to simplify and
facilitate business reporting obligations
STP
Single Touch Payroll
Business initiative to support gathering data
related to payroll processing from businesses to
ATO
1.3
STAKEHOLDERS
Stakeholders in this document are:
Team/Person
Interest
STP SWDs
Implement SBR enabled BMS to support STP
ATO architects
Governance of high level design and understanding
as it relates to other systems and business
processes.
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1.4
DISCUSSION HISTORY
Issues/Question
/Meeting
1.5
TA210 – Error Handling options for STP Payroll Events
Discussion Matter
SMEs
Contacted
Date
ASSUMPTIONS
The table below lists the assumptions upon which this document is based.
Ref #
Assumption
1
This paper will discuss options STP error handling, however it is not expected to
be part of the solution outlined for July 2017
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TA210 – Error Handling options for STP Payroll Events
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2
ERROR HANLDING OPTIONS
2.1
OPTION 1 (BULK)
Processing is implemented as per the current design – at the high level the approach used
by the SBR solution for this option is “all or nothing” so the whole Payroll Event message is
treated as one atomic transaction which can be processed only if the whole message is valid
including the parent and all children records (see the diagram below).
Client or
Tax Agent
BULK processing
Prepare Payroll
Event Data
Fix Employee errors
in BMS
yes
Analyse Validation
Report with errors
Submit Payroll
Event to ATO
(first time)
Re-submit updated
Payroll Event to ATO
for ALL Employee
records
Any errors
found?
Validate all
Employee records
Generate validation
report
no
Finish
Any errors
found?
ATO
BMS
yes
yes
Finish
no
Process all
Employee records
The validation in the SBR channel supports two level of validation:


first one (being the xml schema validation) that ensures that the message is valid in
the technical senses, (checks the payload is a well formed XML and it is validated
against the schema which incorporates majority of the field level validation rules, e.g.
cardinality, acceptable formats and values)
second one (being the custom validation) is performed at the record level that
ensures that message is valid in the business sense and supports check of business
rules which can’t be expressed in the xml schema (e.g. cross fields/record checks).
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TA210 – Error Handling options for STP Payroll Events
All errors encountered during validation process are combined into the validation report
which is made available for the BMS. At this point if there are any errors found then the
processing of the request message is stopped and no records are sent to the backend for
further processing. Only if the validation passed successfully then all data records from the
Payroll Event message are passed to the backend.
After BMS pulls out the validation report the BMS user has to check whether any errors were
encountered and if so then fix required data in the BMS. As soon as all issues are fixed the
Payroll Event information needs to be resubmit to the SBR and for that BMS needs to
generate the Payroll Event message and to include the full set of Employee records in it.
The process continues until the Payroll Event message can be successfully validated. Only
then the message will be processed by ATO and customer’s obligation to report the certain
Payroll Event is considered fulfilled.
The advantage of this option:



Easy to retransmit the Payroll Event message as all Employee information need to
be retrieved from the payroll system without any filtering.
It is aligned with the current implementation and doesn’t require any changes by ATO
and/or SWDs
The “all or nothing” approach is the supported bulk processing pattern for all
eCommerce channels
The disadvantage of this option:


In case of re-submit all “good” records need to be sent by BMS and re-validated by
ATO
The reprocessing of all Employee data records multiple times caused by the
resubmission of fixed records will lead to the additional delay for Employee data to
become available via ATO Online
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2.2
TA210 – Error Handling options for STP Payroll Events
OPTION 2 (BATCH IN A BULK)
This option is suggested to implement more efficient processing of payroll event
transactions. At the high level the Payroll Event message is considered as a set of
independent Employee records (transactions) which allows validate and process them
independently (as a batch hence the name for the option is “batch in a bulk”).
Client or
Tax Agent
BATCH in a BULK processing
Prepare Payroll
Event Data
Fix Employee errors
in BMS
Analyse Validation
Report with errors
Submit Payroll
Event to ATO
(first time)
Re-submit updated
Payroll Event to ATO
ONLY for updated
Employee records
and the same
Employer info
Any errors
found?
Validate all
Employee records
Generate validation
report
no
Finish
ATO
BMS
yes
Process only valid
Employee records,
ignore invalid ones
Finish
Similar to the first option when BMS user submits the Payroll Event to the SBR channel, all
validation errors are reported in the validation report which is made available to the client via
BMS. However the main difference in this option is that the errors encountered in some
records would have no impact on other records which have been validated successfully so it
would result in ability to accept or reject Employee records individually.
When the message is validated in the SBR channel the validation report will be produced
and made available to the end user via BMS similar to the option 1. However records which
passed validation would be processed in ATO backend.
As for the option 1 the BMS user has to check all returned errors and fix the data in the
BMS. But in this scenario the BMS needs to generate new Payroll Event message with only
a subset of Employee records (only those ones which required fixes and have been modified
by the user). In addition to this the BMS needs to include Employer details as they were in
the initial Payroll Event lodgement to allow ATO to update the data accordingly.
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TA210 – Error Handling options for STP Payroll Events
In this case the BMS doesn’t re-send all Employee records to the SBR channel but instead
sends only Employee records which failed validation in the initial Payroll Event lodgement.
The advantages of this option:



Valid Employee data records received and processed on the first submission so
clients can see their details without delay or waiting for the re-submission
Reduced duplicate validation of valid Employee details records
Employee data can become available via ATO Online quicker because the
reprocessing of the same Employee records multiple times doesn’t occur for
resubmission of fixed records
The disadvantages of this option:




Additional logic is required in the BMS to be able recreate a previous Payroll Run
details in a Payroll Event message.
BMS needs to filter out only corrected Employee records to include them into
“corrected” message
Requires additional reconciliation process to ensure that all Employee records are
received for every Payroll Event
Requires changes in the design and implementation of payroll event services by
SWDs and ATO which means additional expenses and time delay
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TA210 – Error Handling options for STP Payroll Events
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2.3
COMPARISON OF BEHAVIOUR
The table below presents the comparison of behaviour for both options.
Behaviour
BULK
BATCH
in a BULK
Schema validation error in the Payroll Event transmission result
in the whole transmission rejected
+
+
Error in any Employer record results in the Payroll Event
transmission rejected
+
+
Error in any Employee record results in the Validation Error
returned to BMS
+
+
Error in any Employee record results in this record to be
rejected
+
+
Successfully validated Employee records are rejected by ATO if
any other Employee record in the same transmission has an
error
+
Successfully validated Employee records are processed by ATO
when any other Employee record in the same transmission has
an error
+
Rejected Employee records have to be fixed by the BMS user
+
All Employee records need to be re-lodged
+
Only rejected Employee records need to be re-lodged
Update requires re-submission of the full Payroll Event
Update only includes changed Employee records and original
Employer/Payroll Event information
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+
+
+
+
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2.4
TA210 – Error Handling options for STP Payroll Events
RECOMMENDATION
Considering the tight timeframe and significant additional efforts required to change the
current design and implementation the option 1 (stay with the current BULK processing
pattern) is recommended.
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