It’s that time of the quarter again and I am encouraging all my clients to get their BAS completed early this quarter. Whilst your accounting software will prepare the figures for you – it is important that you do a certain amount of checking before you submit the figures to the ATO to ensure that the data is correct and complete.
The following seven steps that are a minimum, although my own checklist has about 20 points.
- Check that all sale and purchase transactions have a tax code
- For purchases of a capital nature, check that the tax code for Capital purchases has been used.
- Check that transactions that are not reportable for GST purposes – eg Payroll, Owners Drawings, Transfer of funds etc are not included in the tax reports
- Check that the figures on the BAS itself are the same as on the tax reports from your software
- Check that the sales and purchases reported on the BAS reconcile to sales and expenses in the P&L for the corresponding period (after adjusting for non reportable items, Cost of Goods sold etc)
- Reconcile GST account in the Balance Sheet to the amount being reported on the BAS
- Check that all boxes on the BAS have been correctly completed and then take a copy of it and file in case it is needed in the future.
And lastly but really importantly – once you have completed the BAS – Lock the period to prevent inadvertent changes to reconciled transactions.
