Points To Consider While Preparing Your BAS Return

Do you own a small business in Australia? Is it registered with GST? Then, you must lodge your business activity statement or BAS tax return without any failure. According to the survey, it has been found that lodging BAS tax return appears to be quite tricky for most small businesses. That is quite natural because business owners have to deal with a variety of things. Well, if you closely follow the basics of Australian Taxation Office (ATO) guidelines. Then you will find that it is indeed very easy to lodge.

As a small business owner in Australia. You will definitely want to see the potential BAS due for your company, don’t you? Here are given some key points that you should consider while you will prepare your business activity statement.

Read More:- How To Maximise Your Tax Refund In Australia?

Business Activity Statement Will Allow You to Maintain Records in a More Streamlined Fashion

BAS is nothing but a government form that you have to lodge to the Australian Taxation Office. It summarizes all the business-related taxes that you pay to the Australian government during a specific period. The lodgement of BAS can be monthly, quarterly, or annually. You have to decide it, considering the strength of your business.

To maintain your business records, you can use excel spreadsheets where you have to put all the financial data manually. But, why will you invest more time on that, while you will have to do a lot of things to make your business prosper? So, it’s better that you use online tools or new generation cloud-based software solutions. Using these software systems will make your job easier and smoother.

• Effortless report production: As you can understand that, using digital software will reduce manual labor. You can produce different loss and profit reports as well as balance sheet reports without giving much effort.
• Arrangement of useful information: You can arrange much necessary information that will be important in lodgement of your BAS.
• Preparation of financial reports: The most important benefit of such software is that you can prepare the financial reports for your company quite effectively.

But you must always remember that, before purchase of such software system, you must always do some background research to get the idea of its utility. You can consult with any BAS agent Perth for valuable advices.

What Are The Factors That You Should Consider While Preparing Your BAS Tax Return?

There are certain factors that you should always consider whenever you prepare your BAS tax return. These factors are as follows:

• Allocation of bank transactions: Bank transactions constitute an integral part of running your business. While preparing BAS, You must check whether you have allocated all your bank transactions to the correct bank accounts.
• Verification of bank balance: The bank balance information should match. You must always verify that the bank balance you listed in the accounting software matches with the one available in your account.
• Inclusion of tax invoices and receipts: You must include all the tax invoices and receipts you have received for all the business-related transactions. Before preparing the BAS, you must ensure that you have all of them in records.
• Checking of GST tax codes: You must check the correct GST tax codes for all the transactions you have made.
• Checking of GST tax code accuracy: Overseas transaction can be common if your business is quite larger. For overseas purchase or insurance, you must check for the GST tax code accuracy, because inaccurate tax code can lead to misinformation.
• Keeping paperwork of purchases: If you make some new asset purchase or some financial arrangements, you must keep all the paperwork.
• Inclusion of any other taxes: Other taxes and credits include PAYG instalments, fringe benefit tax or fuel tax credits. You should see whether you have to include these taxes also, apart from GST.

The benefit of checking figures at every BAS level is that your statements will be highly accurate. And the chance of GST or PAYG installments at the end of the financial year will reduce considerably. Also, you will get a clearer picture of all the liabilities in a financial year. Which will enable you to maintain a steady cash flow.

Read More:- All You Need To Know About Business Activity Statement (BAS)

What Are The Due Dates For Your BAS Lodgement?

Most of the small businesses in Australia lodge BAS quarterly. So, if you also want to consider lodging it quarterly, then keep in mind the following dates:

• Quarter – 1^st April to 30^th June: For you, the due date in this quarter will be 28^th July while that for your BAS agent Perth is 25^th August.
• Quarter – 1^st January to 30^th March: Do you want to prepare and lodge your BAS under this quarter? Then, you due date will be 28^th April. But if you want your BAS agent to do it for you, then the due date will be 26^th May.
• Quarter – 1^st October to 31^st December: If you want to complete the preparation and lodgement of BAS within this quarter. Then the due date is 28^th February of the following year which will be same for your registered tax agent too. This is the only quarter where the due date is same for both.
• Quarter – 1^st July to 30^th September: The conventional due date is 28^th October while that for the agent is 25^th November.

Ending Note

For preparation and lodgement of BAS, it is always recommended to hire any professional advisor. You can find highly skilled tax agent in Perth or anywhere else in Australia, who can guide you in a methodical manner.