Each quarter, GST registered businesses lodge a business activity statement, or BAS, with the Australian Taxation Office. It sets out the GST you collected from customers and the GST you paid to suppliers, so you can work out what you owe or what you are owed. Depending on your business it also covers PAYG withholding from wages and your PAYG instalments.
If you are already using accounting software, most of the work is done for you and you can lodge without leaving the platform.
Who has to lodge a BAS
Any business can register for GST. You must register once you pass the turnover threshold, or if you want to claim fuel tax credits, or if you provide taxi or ride sourcing services. Once you are registered, you lodge a BAS for every period, even if the figures are nil.
The ATO sets out the current thresholds and reporting cycles on its business activity statements page. Check it rather than relying on a figure you read somewhere, because the thresholds change.
Lodging your BAS from Xero
Before you can lodge straight from Xero, your organisation has to be connected to the ATO. That authorisation process has changed more than once, so rather than repeat steps that may be out of date, follow Xero’s current instructions in Lodge activity statements with Xero on Xero Central.
Once the connection is in place, your activity statements appear on the BAS dashboard. Xero pulls your GST figures through automatically, you can adjust anything that needs adjusting, and you lodge from within Xero.
Before you press lodge
The software will let you lodge whatever is in the file. It will not tell you the file is wrong. Before you lodge, it is worth checking that your bank feed is reconciled to the last day of the period, that there is nothing sitting unreconciled, and that your payroll figures agree with what you have already reported through Single Touch Payroll.
If any of that is a struggle, the problem is usually the bookkeeping rather than the BAS. Our page on bookkeeping covers what we do there.
Getting help with it
We are Xero certified advisors, so we can prepare and lodge activity statements for our clients from inside Xero. Having everything in one place means we are not chasing you for data you have already entered, and it means we can see what is coming rather than finding out after the event.
If you use QuickBooks Online instead, we work in that too. See our Xero partner page or QuickBooks Online support.
Want your BAS off your desk?
We prepare and lodge BAS for trade and small business owners across Albury Wodonga, so you know the number and the date before it is due.
