Seems to be a fair amount of confusion about Jobkeeper. I spoke to our Accountant this morning and he believes it will work like this:

-Firstly the company will need to show their sales have declined by 30% or 50% for sales above $1billion. The Treasurer said this morning it's simply a matter of sending in your March sales this year and prior year.

-The business then advise the ATO of their eligible employees. The ATO will check to see if they've been on your payroll since the 1st March via Single Touch Payroll or the business will need to provide proof another way.

-The ATO will process the payments to businesses at the same time advising eligible employees their employer has been paid. The business will then credit the employees account. Any company that doesn't pass the funds on would be literally crucified by the ATO.

I'm pretty sure they've set it up this way as a lot of small businesses would not be able to pay the payroll upfront as their cash flow has dried up.