Once you have completed your Business Activity Statement (BAS) or Instalment Activity Statements (IAS), you need to record the payment owing to the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) or the credit you will receive from them.
You'll use your completed activity statement to help you record this transaction in MYOB. But all businesses are different so you might need help from an accounting advisor if the information below doesn't suit your specific business needs.
Using bank feeds? When your ATO payment or credit transaction comes through in the bank feed:
-
if you've already recorded a transaction for it in MYOB, you can match the ATO payment or credit to that transaction, or
-
if you haven't yet recorded a transaction, you can allocate the ATO payment or credit to the applicable categories. Why not speed this up by creating an allocation template?
What information do I need to enter my ATO payment or credit?
Grab your completed BAS/IAS and take a look at the back sheet. This has all the information you need to enter your payment or credit.
Here's a brief description of the BAS fields, the MYOB categories they relate to, and whether the amount you enter in your transaction will be a positive or negative value (based on whether it's a payment or credit).
BAS Field | Field Name | Description | Example account number | If it's an ATO payment, enter the amount as | If it's an ATO refund, enter the amount as |
1A | Goods and Services tax payable | This is the GST that you have collected. In MYOB the GST Balance category tracks both GST collected and paid to reflect the net GST liability. See the FAQ below for more info. | 2-XXXX | + (Positive) | - (Negative) |
Goods and services tax paid | This is the GST that you have paid. In MYOB the GST Balance category tracks both GST collected and paid to reflect the net GST liability. See the FAQ below for more info. | 2-XXXX | - (Negative) | + (Positive) | |
1C | Wine Equalisatin tax payable | This is the amount of Wine Equalisatin tax that you will need to pay if applicable to you. | 2-XXXX | + (Positive) | - (Negative) |
1E | Luxury car tax payable | This is to record the Luxury car tax that you will need to pay if applicable to you. | 2-XXXX | + (Positive) | - (Negative) |
4 | PAYG withholding payable | This is the total amount of PAYG that is withheld from employees and subcontractors. This field also includes amounts withheld for No ABN and also No Tax File Number. | 2-XXXX | + (Positive) | - (Negative) |
5A | PAYG Instalments | This is the prepayment of PAYG, which is based on total Income and the instalment rate that is set on your BAS/IAS form, or an instalment amount. | 3-XXXX | + (Positive | - (Negative) |
6A | Fringe Benefits Tax Instalments | This is a prepayment of Fringe Benefits Tax based on a projection for the year. | 2-XXXX | + (Positive) | - (Negative) |
7 | Deferred Company funds Installments | This field relates to those who are liable to pay deferred instalments under the company of instalmentsystem. | 1-XXXX | + (Positive) | - (Negative) |
N/A | Adjustments and Rounding Account | The BAS requires that whole dollars be reported, so some manual rounding of cents might be required. We suggest that you create an adjustments and rounding account to record the manual rounding of these adjustments. | Expense or Income category | + (Positive) or - (Negative) | + (Positive) or - (Negative) |
Need to create a category? See Adding, editing and deleting categories.
To enter a payment to the ATO
Go to the Banking menu > Spend money.
In the Bank account field, choose the account the ATO payment is coming from.
If you've set up the ATO as a contact, select this contact in the Contact (payee) field.
Enter a Description of transaction.
For the Amounts are option, select Tax inclusive.
Enter the categories and amounts for the transaction. Refer to the table above for guidance. This will be specific to your business, so check with your accounting advisor if you're unsure.
We've used the same GST Balance category for the first two lines in our example and used the Description column to show GST collected and paid as taken from the BAS. If you use separate GST Collected and GST Paid categories in your business, you can use these instead.
When you're ready, click Record.
To enter a refund (credit) from the ATO
Go to the Banking menu > Receive money.
In the Bank account field, choose the account the ATO payment is coming from.
If you've set up the ATO as a contact, select this contact in the Contact (payee) field.
Enter a Description of transaction.
For the Amounts are option, select Tax inclusive.
Enter the categories and amounts for the transaction. Refer to the table above for guidance. This will be specific to your business, so check with your accounting advisor if you're unsure.
We've used the same GST Balance category for the first two lines in our example and used the Description column to show GST collected and paid as taken from the BAS. If you use separate GST Collected and GST Paid categories in your business, you can use these instead.
When you're ready, click Record.
FAQs
What is the 'GST Balance' category?
The GST collected and paid on sales and purchases are sometimes tracked using default GST Paid and GST Collected categories.
But if your accounts list has a single GST Balance category instead, this ensures that the net GST amount on your GST Return or BAS matches the net amount in the ledger. You can also set this category as your GST clearing category under your Report settings
Why a single category?
Benefits include:
The ledger records net GST by transaction regardless of the account type selected. A GST Balance category in the ledger prevents a mismatch between how GST is allocated in the ledger compared to the BAS/GST Return allocations.
It saves time when allocating BAS/GST Return payments as the payment doesn't need to be split between GST collected and paid.
Accountants love it because they often combine GST collected and paid accounts when preparing financial statements.
Gross and GST amounts can be viewed on the General ledger report, and the GST reports also can show the category's Name and Code with sorting options.
Once you have completed your activity statement (BAS or IAS) you'll need to record the ATO payment or refund.
Recording a payment to the ATO
Enter your ATO payment using a Spend Money transaction with a separate line to represent each of your BAS fields (Banking command centre > Spend Money). These fields will typically have an associated account in AccountRight, but check with your accounting advisor if you're unsure which accounts to use.
For example, your GST payable (BAS field 1A) is typically allocated to a liability account (2-XXXX) called GST Collected.
Use this table to work out what to enter in your transaction and whether the amount should be positive or negative.
BAS field | Field name | Description | Account number example | In Spend Money, the entry is |
1A | Goods and Services tax payable | This is the GST that you have collected. | 2-XXXX | + (Positive) |
1B | Goods and services tax paid | This is the GST that you have paid. | 2-XXXX | - (Negative) |
1C | Wine Equalisation tax payable | This is the amount of Wine Equalisation tax that you will need to pay if applicable to you. | 2-XXXX | + (Positive) |
1E | Luxury car tax payable | This is to record the Luxury car tax that you will need to pay if applicable to you. | 2-XXXX | + (Positive) |
4 | PAYG withholding payable | This is the total amount of PAYG that is withheld from employees and subcontractor. This field also includes amounts withheld for No ABN and also No Tax File Number. | 2-XXXX | + (Positive) |
5A | PAYG Instalments | This is the prepayment of PAYG, which is based on total Income and the instalment rate that is set on your BAS/IAS form, or an instalment amount. | 1-XXXX | + (Positive) |
6A | Fringe Benefits Tax Instalments | This is a prepayment of Fringe Benefits Tax based on a projection for the year. | 2-XXXX | + (Positive) |
7 | Deferred Company funds Instalments | This field relates to those who are liable to pay deferred instalments under the company or fund instalment system. | 1-XXXX | + (Positive) |
N/A | Adjustments and Rounding Account | The BAS requires that whole dollars be reported, so some manual rounding of cents will be required. We suggest that you create an adjustments and rounding account to record the manual rounding of these adjustments. | Expense or Income Account | + (Positive) or - (Negative) |
Here's our example Spend Money transaction for a payment to the ATO.A tax code of N-T is usually given to the allocation accounts in the transaction, but you should always check with your accounting advisor or the ATO for the applicable tax codes to use in your circumstances.
Recording a refund from the ATO
Enter your ATO refund using a Receive Money transaction with a separate line for each of your BAS fields (Banking command centre > Receive Money). These fields will typically have an associated account in AccountRight, but check with your accounting advisor if you're unsure which accounts to use.
For example, your GST paid (BAS field 1B) is typically allocated to a liability account (2-XXXX) called GST Paid.
Use this table to work out what to enter in your transaction and whether the amount should be positive or negative.
BAS field | Field name | Description | Account number example | In Receive Money, the entry is |
1A | Goods and Services tax payable | This is the GST that you have collected. | 2-XXXX | - (Negative) |
1B | Goods and services tax paid | This is the GST that you have paid. | 2-XXXX | + (Positive) |
1C | Wine Equalisation tax payable | This is the amount of Wine Equalisation tax that you will need to pay if applicable to you. | 2-XXXX | - (Negative) |
1E | Luxury car tax payable | This is to record the Luxury car tax that you will need to pay if applicable to you. | 2-XXXX | - (Negative) |
4 | PAYG withholding payable | This is the total amount of PAYG that is withheld from employees and subcontractor. This field also includes amounts withheld for No ABN and also No Tax File Number. | 2-XXXX | - (Negative) |
5A | PAYG Instalments | This is the prepayment of PAYG, which is based on total Income and the instalment rate that is set on your BAS/IAS form, or an instalment amount. | 1-XXXX | - (Negative) |
6A | Fringe Benefits Tax Instalments | This is a prepayment of Fringe Benefits Tax based on a projection for the year. | 2-XXXX | - (Negative) |
7 | Deferred Company funds Instalments | This field relates to those who are liable to pay deferred instalments under the company or fund instalment system. | 1-XXXX | - (Negative) |
N/A | Adjustments and Rounding Account | The BAS requires that whole dollars be reported, so some manual rounding of cents will be required. We suggest that you create an adjustments and rounding account to record the manual rounding of these adjustments. | Expense or Income Account | + (Positive) or - (Negative) |
Here's our example Receive Money transaction for a refund from the ATO.
A tax code of N-T is usually given to the allocation accounts in the transaction, but you should always check with your accounting advisor or the ATO for the applicable tax codes to use in your circumstances.
Using bank feeds?
If your ATO payment or refund appears as a bank transaction in your bank feeds you can match it to an existing Receive money or Spend money transaction, if you've already entered it, or create a transaction from the bank transaction, with separate transaction lines for each of your BAS fields, as we showed in the examples above. If you need a refresher on using bank feeds, see Approving a bank feed.