BAS Preparation & Lodgement

For most small businesses lodging quarterly, the standard due dates are 28 October (Q1, July–Sept), 28 February (Q2, Oct–Dec, with the holiday extension), 28 April (Q3, Jan–Mar) and 28 July (Q4, Apr–Jun). Lodging through us as a registered tax agent extends each of those dates by four weeks. Monthly lodgers have a 21-day cycle. We confirm your specific cycle in the engagement.

We reconcile GST collected and GST paid against your Xero or MYOB file, check coding of capital purchases, PAYG withholding from payroll, PAYG instalments, FBT instalments where applicable, and fuel tax credits where applicable. The BAS is reviewed against the source documents, lodged through the registered tax agent portal, and the lodgement confirmation is filed with the workpapers.

Yes. We can rebuild a BAS from bank statements and source documents, or clean up an existing Xero file before lodgement. A clean-up engagement is priced separately so you see exactly what the catch-up work costs versus the recurring BAS fee. We will not lodge a BAS we cannot reconcile.

The ATO charges failure-to-lodge penalties and general interest charge on any unpaid GST or PAYG amounts. Penalty remission is sometimes available where there is a reasonable cause and the lodgement is brought up to date promptly. We can prepare a remission request as part of the catch-up engagement — outcomes are at the Commissioner's discretion.

A fixed quarterly fee based on the business — transaction volume, complexity, number of payroll employees, GST registration status, and whether you carry instalments. We quote in writing after a short scoping call and the fee is locked for the engagement period.

Both options are available. Some clients prefer to do their own bookkeeping in Xero and engage us only for quarterly BAS review and lodgement. Others outsource monthly bookkeeping to us so the file is BAS-ready every month. The right choice usually depends on transaction volume and how much in-house finance time you have.

Yes. An IAS applies where you have PAYG withholding or PAYG instalments but no GST registration, or where you lodge GST annually rather than quarterly. The mechanics are the same; we confirm the right form in the engagement.

Read-only access to your Xero or MYOB file, payroll summaries for the period, bank statements for accounts that are not connected to the accounting file, and any unusual transactions you would like flagged. We email a short document checklist about two weeks before each quarter close.

We pull your lodgement history from the tax agent portal so we know exactly which periods are outstanding, then prepare the overdue quarters in order — each reconciled to its own bank and payroll data rather than estimated — and lodge them as a batch. Once current, we reconcile the ATO account balance and, where circumstances support it, prepare a penalty remission request. Catch-up work is quoted as a one-off engagement, separate from the recurring quarterly fee.

Quarterly is the default for most small businesses and usually the right cycle. Monthly GST reporting is compulsory above the ATO turnover threshold, and some businesses in a net refund position choose it voluntarily to bring refunds forward — the trade-off is twelve reconciliation cycles a year instead of four. PAYG withholding can also run on its own monthly IAS cycle while GST stays quarterly. We review the cycle at scoping rather than assuming the existing setting is right.