Bookkeeping and BAS lodgement
Stop wondering whether the numbers are actually right
You should be able to open Xero on any day of the month and believe what it tells you. That is the whole job: a file that reconciles, an activity statement that agrees with your accounts, and an afternoon a week back. That is what our bookkeeping services do: the books kept in Xero, the BAS prepared and lodged on time, and someone who already knows your file when a question comes up.
What goes wrong without it
A reconciled file and a correct file are not the same thing
None of the three below shows up as an error message. They show up as a quarter that does not agree with what you lodged, and an evening spent hunting for the difference.
Green ticks that do not mean reconciled
Every line marked off, and last financial year's transactions still sitting in this one. If your bank reconciliation is out, everything is out.
GST Free and BAS Excluded used as if they were one code
They are not. Almost every line in your profit and loss belongs in GST or GST Free, and reaching for BAS Excluded there quietly changes what you report.
An activity statement nobody reconciled first
The form goes out without the accounts behind it being checked, so the correction surfaces a quarter later, when it is harder to unpick.
What you get
The books kept properly, and the BAS to match
Bank reconciliation done to the cent, verified on the bank reconciliation report rather than on the green ticks
Supplier bills and receipts captured through Hubdoc, so nothing is typed in twice
GST coding reviewed rather than assumed, because GST Free and BAS Excluded are not interchangeable
Activity statements prepared with the underlying accounts reconciled first, so the form agrees with the file
Comparative reports showing the same period last year beside this one, with each variance as a percentage
Payroll and superannuation kept alongside the books if you want them handled together
Outsourced bookkeeping
Your whole bookkeeping function, without a bookkeeper on the payroll
What would you do with the hours your bookkeeping takes now? Some clients want help with the quarter. Others want the whole job off their plate. For them, we become the bookkeeping team. We process and chase the invoices, match the payments, reconcile the bank, prepare the BAS and run the payroll. You do not hire, train or cover leave for someone in house.
Invoices followed until they are paid
Invoices raised in your practice or sales system are picked up in Xero and followed until the money arrives.
Every payment matched to its invoice
Including a settlement that lands as one lump sum covering many invoices. We never force a match just to clear the bank feed.
Overdue accounts chased
We ring the customers ourselves. A debtors report tells you who owes you money. The call is what gets it paid.
The bank reconciled, the bills captured
Reconciled to the cent, with supplier bills captured through Hubdoc, so nothing is typed in twice.
The BAS prepared and lodged
With the accounts behind it reconciled first, so the form agrees with the file.
Payroll, superannuation and STP
Pay runs kept alongside the books, by the same team.
How it works in practice
Outsourced bookkeeping for two of our clients
Both are described by what they do, never by name.
A psychology practice that grew to a second site
We started by cleaning up Xero and training the owner. Then the owner asked us to take over the bookkeeping. Payments had been pushed into one clearing account, so the bank looked reconciled while some payments sat against the wrong patient or the wrong payment method. We changed the integration so each payment carries its payment method into Xero, and a lump-sum settlement can now be matched invoice by invoice. The same checks showed cash recorded against patient invoices that had not yet been banked. We raised it with the practice manager and the owners, and the money was found and deposited. The practice can now see who has paid and who has not.
A pharmaceutical company
Before we took on a single transaction, we wrote the whole process down, across Unleashed and Xero. Now the sales team enters each order in Unleashed. We process it before the midday cut-off, so it reaches the distribution centre that day. We issue the invoice from Xero, reconcile the payment when it arrives, and ring the customers whose accounts are overdue. On the client's own reckoning, the same work took 25 to 30 hours a week in house. It now takes 5 to 7.5.
More control, not less
Will outsourcing mean losing sight of your books?
It is the most common worry, and in our experience it runs the other way. You get books that are kept current, and a team behind them rather than one person doing data entry.
A team, not one person
Our team combines bookkeepers with different levels of experience, accounting expertise and integration skills. A question one bookkeeper would have to escalate, or an automation they could not build, is handled within the team.
Nobody's leave stops the work
We normally have at least two bookkeepers who know each client's file. When one is away, another already knows the job.
You pay for the work, not the roster
An in-house bookkeeper can look cheaper on the hourly rate. You also carry the fixed costs of employing them, and pay for their contracted hours in a quiet week. We work when the work is there.
Automation, with a person still checking
One client's invoices arrived by email from software that does not connect to Xero. Each one now becomes a draft Xero invoice by itself, and a bookkeeper checks it before approving it, instead of typing it in line by line.
How it works
Four steps, in this order
1
A free 30-minute call
You tell us what the file is doing and where the month goes. We tell you whether this is ongoing bookkeeping, a repair job first, or something you could run yourself after one session of training.
2
We look at the file before we quote
Four reports in order: bank reconciliation, wages payable, GST, then the balance sheet. That is usually enough to say what state the file is in and what it will take to keep it.
3
We agree what we take on
Which parts we keep, which parts stay with you, and what happens on which day of the month. Written down, so nobody is waiting on anybody.
4
A monthly rhythm, and a quarterly one
Reconciliations and reports monthly, the activity statement quarterly, and nothing lodged until the accounts behind it reconcile.
Who it suits
Who this is for
Medical and allied health
Practitioner payments and billings that reconcile without a monthly rebuild.
NDIS and disability care
Claims and participant records kept in a state that stands up to an audit.
Not-for-profits
Fund and grant tracking, and a committee report you can simply run.
Employers
Pay runs, superannuation and STP, kept alongside the reconciliations.
Gold Coast businesses
Books kept by a team you can sit down with, not a call centre.
Questions we answer every week
Questions we are asked most
Do you keep the books, or teach us to keep them?
Either, and often both. Some clients hand the whole month over. Others keep the reconciliations in house and have only the quarterly work done for them, which usually starts with one training session so the person doing it does it the same way every month.
Can we lodge our own BAS?
Yes, and plenty of our clients do. We strongly advise a review before you lodge, and our guide to getting BAS lodgement right sets out the checks. The test we teach is simple: the activity statement, the profit and loss and the balance sheet all have to reconcile. If your bank reconciliation is out, everything is out, and a screen full of green ticks is not proof that it is in. Our bank reconciliation case study shows three accounts marked reconciled that were not.
What is the difference between GST Free and BAS Excluded?
GST Free is a business supply that carries no GST. BAS Excluded is for items that are not business supplies at all, and for balance sheet items that are not fixed assets. Almost everything in your profit and loss should therefore be GST or GST Free, and the usual exceptions are wages, superannuation, bank revaluation and foreign exchange gains and losses. Ask us about a specific transaction rather than guessing, because the same wrong code repeated for a year is what makes a quarter hard to fix. The full difference is in our guide to GST Free or BAS Excluded in Xero.
Our file is already behind. Where does that leave us?
In more ordinary company than you would think. Files get behind for ordinary reasons. Sometimes we fix everything. Sometimes the practical answer is to draw a line at the last lodged return and get this year right, because months spent correcting old periods can leave you worse off than a clean start from a fixed date. We will tell you which one we think it is, and why.
Do we need to be on the Gold Coast?
No. We work with clients across Australia in Xero, and you are welcome at our Gold Coast office by appointment if you are local.
What does outsourced bookkeeping include?
Whatever you want to hand over. For some clients it is the whole function: invoices, payment matching, overdue accounts, the bank reconciliation, the BAS and payroll. For others it is only the quarterly work. Either way we agree in writing which parts we keep and which stay with you.
Isn't an in-house bookkeeper cheaper?
On the hourly rate alone it can look that way. A fuller comparison includes the fixed costs of employing someone, the contracted hours you pay for in a quiet week, and what happens when that one person takes leave or resigns. We work the hours the work takes, and we normally have at least two bookkeepers who know your file.
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