While the Southgate Group includes companies specialising in Fleet Management and Finance Services, we also provide a stand-alone dedicated salary packaging company. With packaging as our core business, we are able to provide full administrative services beyond just novated leasing; setting us apart from any providers in the market whose core business is limited to managing vehicles or selling finance.

Our packaging customers obtain the advantage of the Southgate Group’s decades of experience within vehicle management and finance, whilst still dealing with a specialised salary packaging company whose focus, training and knowledge encompasses all aspects of salary packaging and fringe benefit types well beyond just vehicles.

We provide the following advantages over other providers that are predominantly fleet or finance companies offering a novated lease option:

• We have an acute understanding of tax and compliance issues related to salary packaging, particularly with ‘grey areas’ that are often overlooked by the industry. Even where you only intend to offer novated lease fringe benefits within your organisation, these other providers do not incorporate the same level of FBT compliance and management as Southgate, because it is not a core part of their service and is therefore often done poorly.
• We are able to provide a full range of fringe benefits in addition to vehicles. Where other providers are limited to Novated Leases and occasionally superannuation or laptops, Southgate can provide almost any additional fringe benefits, such as General Living Expenses, Mortgage Payments, Credit Card Payments, Meals & Accommodation, School Fees, Self-Education Expenses and more. This is all managed with the convenience of a single provider. Southgate also has intricate and specialised knowledge of the less common fringe benefit types such as Remote Area Housing Assistance and LAFHA, which are commonly misunderstood and mismanaged in the general industry.
• With Southgate, a single salary packaging administration fee applies to the employee’s salary package, regardless of the number of individual fringe benefits they have setup. This means the employee could package numerous other fringe benefits in addition to their novated lease, in order to maximise their overall tax savings, without incurring any additional administration fees. Where any specific fringe benefit programs incur additional fees, these are kept separate such that only employees electing that specific benefit will pay an additional cost, providing a more cost-effective service for all employees.
• Southgate tailors all information and reporting to your organisation’s FBT status and salary packaging policies. Most other vehicle management or novated leasing companies do not have the IT systems and procedures to enforce applicable policies or provide FBT budgeting and reporting tailored to your organisation’s FBT status.
• Where your employees receive a capped FBT concession or exemption, most vehicle management and novated leasing companies do not track or report the concession cap limits and usage, exposing your organisation to significant additional FBT liability. Furthermore, where other fringe benefits are packaged with a separate provider from the fleet/salary packaged vehicles, it is near impossible for the separate providers to track and enforce total FBT concession cap usage for each employee. As a dedicated salary packaging company, Southgate is able to monitor and enforce all FBT concession cap usage to reduce any risks of your organisation incurring additional FBT liability.
• Southgate focuses on overall compliance of salary packaging arrangements for long term sustainability and tax effectiveness. We consider all ATO compliance factors in regards to Novated Leases, including ATO minimum lease residual values, luxury car tax implications, ‘Vehicle Other Than a Car’ implications and restrictions, and flexibility of the lease arrangements so that vehicle budgets can be changed at anytime as required without incurring significant penalties during or at the end of the lease.