Eternity Group

Hills District · Business accounting

Business Accountant — Hills District

A Cherrybrook-based Chartered Accountant and registered Tax Agent (TPB 25523469) serving Pty Ltd owners and family-business structures across Norwest, Bella Vista, Castle Hill, Baulkham Hills, Cherrybrook and the wider Hills corridor. Company returns, BAS, virtual CFO, director tax planning and Xero discipline.

Book a Hills District Business Advisory CallSee Fees

Eternity Group Accountants provides business advisory and BAS services as a registered tax agent (TPB 25523469). Information on this page is general in nature and does not take into account your specific business circumstances. Engagement scope, fees and deliverables are confirmed in a written engagement letter before work begins.

Hills District business context

A practice organised around the Norwest profile.

The dominant Hills District small-business profile is the Pty Ltd director — typically founder-operated, often paired with a family trust, running on Xero, with a mix of salary and distributions. The business-accountant engagement is built around that shape rather than around volume PAYG returns.

Norwest and Bella Vista together form the dominant commercial centre for the Hills District. The mix of businesses there — professional services, IT consultancies, allied-health practices, engineering and architecture firms, construction trades, recruitment, financial advisory — share a recurring pattern. A founder operates through a Pty Ltd company. A family discretionary trust often holds the shares. Income flows through a mixture of salary, distributions and (where the structure supports it) franked dividends. Director-pay decisions interact with personal lending decisions whenever a home purchase, refinance or investment property is on the table.

Castle Hill and Baulkham Hills add the retail, hospitality and services-business layer — businesses occupying their own premises, often with employed staff and Single Touch Payroll obligations, and frequently with commercial property questions. Cherrybrook and West Pennant Hills add the home-based professional-services microbusiness — solo consultants, small Pty Ltd practices, contractors taking distributions through a personal services attribution-aware structure.

The engagement design reflects all of this. Compliance work is the floor: company financial statements, the CTR, BAS, payroll, Xero. The differentiator is the year-round advisory cadence and the pre-30-June planning conversation that locks in the year-end position before the year ends, not after.

Engagement shapes

Six Hills District business engagement shapes.

Pty Ltd compliance only

Annual financial statements, the company return, BAS, payroll. Suited to established businesses with a steady rhythm and a founder who handles cashflow and management decisions in-house.

Pty Ltd + family trust

Trading company paired with a family discretionary trust — common Hills District structure. Distribution decisions, trustee resolutions and beneficiary streaming all prepared inside one engagement rather than across two firms.

Virtual CFO retainer

Monthly or quarterly advisory with management reporting, cashflow forecasting, KPI tracking and strategic conversations. Suited to growing $1m–$20m businesses where a salaried CFO would be premature.

Year-end tax planning

Structured April–June conversation: prepayments, super contributions, asset purchases, director-pay, distribution decisions. Locked in before 30 June rather than reverse-engineered afterwards.

Also common

Restructuring or rollover

Where the existing structure has drifted from its purpose — for example, business income flowing through a sole-trader ABN that has outgrown that form — a rollover into a Pty Ltd or company-trust pair is scoped with CGT, stamp-duty and GST consequences quantified up front.

Director + lending alongside

Where the Pty Ltd director is also buying, upgrading or refinancing — owner-occupier home, investment property or commercial premises — the company tax position and the lender’s evidence pack are prepared in sync by the same practitioner.

Practice details

Office details for Hills business clients.

Office

15 Forest Close, Cherrybrook NSW 2126

By appointment. Around 10–15 minutes from Norwest, Bella Vista, Castle Hill and Baulkham Hills.

Tax Agent Registration

25523469

Registered with the Tax Practitioners Board. Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand (CA ANZ) member 266544.

Phone

0414 825 388

Email

rohan@egaamb.com.au

Eternity Group Accountants provides business advisory and BAS services as a registered tax agent (TPB 25523469). Information on this page is general in nature and does not take into account your specific business circumstances. Engagement scope, fees and deliverables are confirmed in a written engagement letter before work begins.

District business scenarios

Three situations that keep arriving at the same desk.

Each of these starts as a single question and turns out to be an accounting, payroll and sometimes lending decision at once. They illustrate where the engagement earns its keep beyond the annual return.

The consultancy crossing the GST line

A Norwest contractor's sole-trader ABN passes the GST registration threshold mid-year. The immediate task is registration and the first BAS; the real question is whether to move to a Pty Ltd before contracts grow around the old structure.

The trade hiring its first employees

A Castle Hill or Baulkham Hills trades business takes on staff. STP starts from the first pay run, super obligations begin immediately, and the owner's own pay usually needs to move from informal drawings to a documented wage.

The practice buying its premises

A Bella Vista allied-health or professional practice buys its own suite. Which entity should hold the property, how GST applies to the purchase, and what evidence the commercial lender needs are three parts of one decision — scoped together, not split across two firms.

The compliance year

What a Pty Ltd year actually looks like.

The annual return is the visible deliverable, but a company's compliance obligations run continuously. The engagement is scheduled around this rhythm so nothing is reverse-engineered at year end.

Every pay run

STP reporting to the ATO on or before each pay event, with superannuation paid by the quarterly deadline — late super is non-deductible, so this is watched rather than assumed.

Each quarter

BAS prepared from a reconciled Xero file: GST coding reviewed, PAYG withholding confirmed against payroll, instalments adjusted where the year is tracking away from the prior-year benchmark.

Once a year — ASIC

The annual company statement, the solvency resolution and a check that officeholders, share structure and the registered office still match reality — a separate stream from the tax lodgements.

After 30 June

STP finalisation for employees first, then financial statements and the CTR — sequenced behind any trust distribution resolutions, which must already have been minuted before year end.

Before the first scoping call

A short document set makes the first conversation concrete rather than hypothetical. Where you are moving from another accountant, the professional-clearance letter is our task, not yours.

  • Most recent financial statements and lodged company return
  • Xero subscription details — advisor access is arranged at engagement
  • Current BAS and IAS lodgement status, including anything overdue
  • Trust deed and any amendments, where a trust sits in the structure
  • Division 7A loan agreements, if director loans exist
  • Payroll snapshot — headcount, pay frequency, default super fund

Decisions before restructuring

Restructures are easiest to regret when the paperwork moves faster than the thinking. Before any entity change, four questions get settled in writing:

  • What has the current structure stopped doing well — tax outcome, risk exposure, or a new owner coming in?
  • Which assets, contracts, licences and employment arrangements must move, and which can stay?
  • What will the new structure cost to run each year, weighed against the benefit claimed for it?
  • When should it take effect? The start of a financial year or quarter is cleaner than mid-stream.

The comparison itself is covered at business structure advice and in the company vs trust guide.

Frequently asked questions

Hills District business accounting — common questions.

Common questions

Who is a "business accountant" engagement for?

Hills District Pty Ltd company owners and family-trust-and-trading-Pty-Ltd structures. Typically professional services, IT, allied health, construction and trades businesses with annual revenue from around $300k up to $20m. The discipline differs from a personal-tax-only engagement because the work spans company financial statements, the CTR, director-pay structuring, BAS, payroll, advisory and the year-end planning conversation.

How does this page differ from the Hills District tax accountant page?

The tax-accountant page is the entry for clients whose first decision is the annual return — often a family return alongside a small business. The business-accountant page is the entry for Pty Ltd directors whose engagement is multi-touchpoint: monthly Xero discipline, quarterly BAS, year-round advisory and the year-end tax planning conversation that sets up the company return. Same practitioner, different engagement rhythm.

What does a typical Hills District Pty Ltd engagement include?

Annual financial statements and the company tax return (CTR), quarterly BAS programme, monthly Xero bookkeeping support (where retained), Single Touch Payroll (STP) compliance, a structured pre-30-June tax planning conversation, director-loan reconciliation and Division 7A discipline, base-rate-entity testing, and ad-hoc advisory between scheduled touchpoints. Where the director is also looking at lending decisions, those run alongside under the combined model.

Do you offer virtual CFO?

Yes — virtual CFO sits one tier above standard compliance work. It is a monthly or quarterly engagement that adds management reporting, cashflow forecasting, KPI tracking, banker/financier preparation, scenario modelling and structured strategic conversations. Suited to growing Hills District SMEs typically in the $1m–$20m revenue band where the founder wants a finance lead but does not yet need a salaried CFO.

Indicative fees?

Indicative scoping fees: company tax returns from $2,200 incl. GST; quarterly BAS from $440 each; bookkeeping retainers from $660/month; virtual CFO from $1,000/month plus GST for Essentials, with higher-touch tiers scoped against complexity. Every engagement is quoted in writing after a short scoping call rather than billed hourly.

I have both a Pty Ltd and a family trust — can both sit inside one engagement?

Yes. A trading Pty Ltd paired with a family discretionary trust (often holding the company shares) is a common Hills District structure. Both the company return and the trust return sit inside the engagement, with the distribution decisions, beneficiary statements and resolutions prepared in sync. Where the structure has drifted from its original purpose we flag the question early — sometimes it is a structuring conversation rather than a return-preparation conversation.

Can you handle commercial property lending alongside the business engagement?

Yes — commercial lending is part of the practice (see /finance/commercial-lending). Owner-occupied premises, commercial investment loans and equipment finance are scoped against business cashflow and lender policy variation rather than residential serviceability. Combining the company tax position with the commercial lending application removes a coordination layer that otherwise sits between your accountant and broker.

Can you take over mid-year from another accountant?

Yes — a mid-year handover is routine and there is no need to wait for 30 June. The professional-clearance letter to your previous accountant is our task, not yours. Xero advisor access transfers within the subscription, the agent-portal link moves across, and the next BAS becomes the first live deliverable. Prior-year workpapers arrive with clearance, so carried-forward positions are not reconstructed later.

Related

Where this fits in the bigger picture

A Hills District business engagement usually touches at least two other services. Each link enters the underlying service from the same Cherrybrook practice.