BAS Payments

If you are paying a tax bill enter the transaction as a Purchase. If you are receiving a tax refund you can enter it as a negative Purchase so that all ATO transactions are listed as purchases or you can enter it as a Sale. Use the Service type of Purchase or Sale. We will use an example to demonstrate one method for capturing BAS transactions. Example:

You have prepared your BAS and as a result you established you obligations for the BAS period to be:

• Collected $1000 in GST (1A on the BAS)
• Paid $500 in GST (1B on the BAS)
• Withheld $2000 in PAYG withholdings tax on staff wages (4 on the BAS)
• PAYG Income Tax Installments are $300 (5A on the BAS)

Note: Net you owe the ATO [ $500 GST + $2300 PAYG ] = [ $2800 BAS ]

1. From the main menu select the + icon next to Purchase. This will bring up the Add Purchase screen.
2. In the Add Purchase screen, [Service] and [Invoice] will already be selected from the picklists.
3. Enter the Date to be the date that you worked out your BAS obligations.
4. The Invoice# number can be set to whatever is meaningful for you. An example might be ” ATO-FY2005-Q4″.
5. The Purchase Order# number can be set to be the ATO document ID found on your BAS form as an example or left blank.
6. The Contact can be set to ATO.
7. The Due Date is the date your BAS form and payment is due to be remitted (top right of BAS form).
8. For the invoice items (Account, Tax Code, Amount):
   

   Account	Tax Code	Amount
   Liability: Tax Collected from Sales		1,000
   Asset: Tax Paid on Purchases		* -500
   Liability: Employee PAYG Payable		2,000
   Liability: PAYG Installments Payable -OR- Other Expense: Income Tax		300
   Total Amount		2,800

   * Negative Amount for refund item

   If you can’t see the tax and payroll accounts mentioned above, go to Settings > Accounts List, and tick both payroll and tax accounts checkboxes.

9. If you are paying the transaction now online or otherwise you can apply a payment to the invoice by clicking the Save button which will make the Apply Payment button available. Otherwise use the Quick Payment section to complete the transaction. If you plan to make payment at a later time click the Save and Close button to leave the transaction unpaid.

You can also enter tax transactions using the Journal screen. However, using the Purchase and/or Sale screens to do this allows you to attach the ATO as the contact to the transaction. This then also allows for easier tracking of transaction history with the ATO by you and your accountant in the future.

NOTE: You can also create multi-line journal entry to record each element of the BAS return instead of using a purchase transaction.