BAS & Bookkeeping in the Hills District — Local Quarterly Support

A quarterly BAS engagement covers GST reconciliation from your accounting system, PAYG withholding on wages, PAYG instalments where applicable, and lodgement via the ATO Online Services for Agents portal under our registered tax agent registration (TPB 25523469). Where there are reconciliation issues — supplier coding errors, GST treatment questions, bank-feed gaps — we flag them up front rather than papering over them.

Either works. Stand-alone BAS suits businesses where the in-house bookkeeper or finance person keeps Xero clean and the role of the practice is to review, reconcile and lodge each quarter. The retainer-bookkeeping path suits businesses where you want the practice to own the day-to-day Xero discipline — bank reconciliation, supplier coding, payroll, contractor payments — so that BAS quarters are uneventful by design. Many Hills District businesses start on stand-alone BAS and add bookkeeping later as they grow.

We run on Xero as the system of record. Bank feeds are reviewed weekly or fortnightly depending on transaction volume. Supplier and contractor invoices are coded against the chart of accounts. Payroll runs on the scheduled day and STP is finalised each pay cycle. The BAS is prepared in the first week of the quarter following, reviewed against the trial balance, and lodged before the due date. Status updates go to the business owner on a regular cadence.

Indicative fees: stand-alone BAS preparation and lodgement from $440 incl. GST quarterly; monthly Xero bookkeeping retainer from $660 per month plus GST for the basic tier (typically up to ~150 transactions per month + payroll for up to 5 employees); higher-volume tiers scoped against transaction count, payroll headcount, contractor coverage and inventory complexity. Every engagement is quoted in writing after a short scoping call.

Yes. Transferring a BAS engagement between registered agents is a defined ATO process — we lodge an updated agent-authority form on Online Services for Agents and pick up the lodgement obligation from the next quarter. The transition is normally seamless from the ATO's perspective; the only adjustment is unwinding any prior coding decisions in Xero that conflict with how we run the file going forward.

STP finalisation is part of the engagement. We reconcile gross wages, PAYG withheld, super contributions and reportable fringe benefits against the year-end Xero figures before submitting the finalisation declaration to the ATO. Employees receive their income statements on MyGov once finalisation is complete.

BAS and bookkeeping are the operational layer. The annual financial statements, the company / trust tax return and the year-end tax planning conversation are separate scoping items — usually quoted together with the BAS/bookkeeping work so the full annual rhythm is visible up front. Anything strategic — restructuring, virtual CFO, lending applications — also sits outside the BAS engagement and is scoped separately.