Why your BAS should only take you 5 minutes

How long does your BAS take you each Quarter/Month? It should only take you 5 minutes; yes that’s right 5 minutes. But I bet you are sitting there shaking your head saying, nope it takes me hours and hours. So let look at the BAS process together and see what is going on.

The way to make sure that your BAS only takes 5 minutes is to make sure that you have all bookkeeping up to date. I know most people associate their BAS process as including the bookkeeping as well, but it doesn’t. Your bookkeeping is separate to the BAS process as it needs to be done weekly or fortnightly or monthly at the very most.

Benefits

The benefits to your business by having your bookkeeping up to date regularly are huge.

You get to see a profit and loss report each time it is up to date so that you know exactly what profit (or loss) your business is making.
You also get to see who owes you money and can therefore start to debt collect.
You get to see how much money you owe people and be able to plan when to pay them.
You can make decisions concerning purchases of new plant and equipment
And your BAS only takes you five minutes to do

Process of a five minute BAS

Once your bookkeeping is maintained regularly and it is kept up to date and accurate, the BAS process is quite fast. Following the guide below you should be able to pump out your BAS in no time at all.

Make sure that the following accounts are all reconciled:
- Bank accounts
- Any Suspense accounts such Undeposited Funds, Electronic Clearing Account etc.
- Credit Cards
- Loan accounts
Screen print a Profit and Loss statement and check that all transactions are correct
Screen print a Tax Detailed Report and confirm the correct allocation of GST codes
Print the following reports
- Profit and Loss
- Tax Detailed Report
- Tax Summary Report
- Payroll Summary Report (if you have staff)
From the reports above, fill in the BAS Statement, lodge on line, or post
Pay your BAS