Seven Point Checklist Before Submitting Your BAS

It’s that time of the quarter again and I am encouraging all my clients to get their BAS completed early this quarter. Whilst your accounting software will prepare the figures for you – it is important that you do a certain amount of checking before you submit the figures to the ATO to ensure that the data is correct and complete.

The following seven steps that are a minimum, although my own checklist has about 20 points.

1. Check that all sale and purchase transactions have a tax code
   
2. For purchases of a capital nature, check that the tax code for Capital purchases has been used.
   
3. Check that transactions that are not reportable for GST purposes – eg Payroll, Owners Drawings, Transfer of funds etc are not included in the tax reports
   
4. Check that the figures on the BAS itself are the same as on the tax reports from your software
   
5. Check that the sales and purchases reported on the BAS reconcile to sales and expenses in the P&L for the corresponding period (after adjusting for non reportable items, Cost of Goods sold etc)
   
6. Reconcile GST account in the Balance Sheet to the amount being reported on the BAS
   
7. Check that all boxes on the BAS have been correctly completed and then take a copy of it and file in case it is needed in the future.

And lastly but really importantly – once you have completed the BAS – Lock the period to prevent inadvertent changes to reconciled transactions.

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