When we pre-fill your information

We may pre-fill information we have about you, to make it easier when you’re reporting your income or claiming an income support payment. You should check the pre-fill information is correct before you submit your report or claim.

Pre-filling your reports

We may pre-fill your employment income when you report each fortnight. This saves you entering all the details yourself.

The pre-filled information comes from the STP reports your employer sends to the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) when they pay you. We get this as a year-to-date figure for each pay period reported, which is broken down into pay components. For each STP report, we calculate the amount paid for the pay period by comparing the latest year-to-date figure with the previous year-to-date figure.

The information we pre-fill from STP reports can include any of the following:

• the amount of each pay component we have calculated, such as wages, overtime and allowances
• the date you are paid for each pay period
• dates of each employer pay period, such as a weekly, fortnightly or monthly pay cycle
• details of reportable fringe benefit and salary sacrificing arrangements
• the date and reason you stopped working, including any unused leave or redundancy payments you got paid.

We don’t get all the information the ATO has about you. We only get the information we need to calculate the payments and services we provide.

Find out about our STP data matching protocols for the data we get.

Pre-filling your claim

When you claim an income support payment, we may pre-fill current or previous employer details for you to check. This can include asking you to confirm:

• if you work for the employer
• details from your last employer, including the date and reason you stopped working, and any unused leave or redundancy payments that you got paid.

You may still need to ask your former employer to complete an Employment Separation Certificate if we need more information. If you need to do this, we’ll tell you when you’re completing your online claim.

Checking pre-filled information in your online account

It’s important to check the information we pre-filled against your payslip and make any changes or add missing information before you submit it.

Once you confirm the pre-filled information, we’ll use it to work out your eligibility and future rate of payment.

By pre-filling the details your employer reports to the ATO, we’re making it simpler for you to report and ensure that you get the right rate of payment. It’s important that you check and update it if needed.

Changing pre-filled information in your online account

If the pre-filled information isn’t right, you can edit it before you submit it. You also need to add information that didn’t pre-fill.

If you find an error after submitting your pre-filled data, you must contact us on your regular payment line to update the information.

Before you contact us, you’ll need to upload evidence, such as a payslip or an Employment Separation Certificate. You can do this using your Centrelink online account or the Express Plus Centrelink mobile app.