What is a BAS Agent ?
A BAS Agent is a Business Activity Statement agent, or a GST return agent.
A BAS Agent works mainly for small businesses or medium sized companies.
We help them with all their ATO and withholding obligations for them to be compliant and reduce fees and fines.
A BAS Agent is basically a more experienced bookkeeper.
They have more of a technical knowhow on how the accounting systems work, and how to use them with the Australian accounting standards.
To see a BAS Agent in action please visit www.clientsneeds.com.au
They lodge the GST collected, paid, PAYG, Income tax instalments, and FBT instalments on a monthly or quarterly basis.
What is a BAS Agent license
These professionals must have a license if they are entering transactions with GST attached or any payroll transactions.
Usually, the only way to charge a fee to a client without a license is if that business is not registered for GST.
If you find your bookkeeper is not registered for GST and is entering transactions into your XERO or MYOB, then they may be doing this illegally.
You can search for a BAS Agent on the TPB Register at Home | Tax Practitioners Board (tpb.gov.au)
What are the duties of a BAS Agent?
They typically enter all the bank transactions and reconcile the bank accounts of the company, but this is the basic version of a bookkeeper.
Once a company gets bigger or requires more help, we can give them a helping hand so they can continue to run their business without any hassles.
There are other jobs for example Invoicing.
Invoicing customers and allocating receipts to invoices so you can keep track of the money that you are owed.
Accounts payable is when you want to keep track of who you owe money too.
We can enter these into the accounting system and provide you with reports, so you know who to pay next, this is usually helpful when you have a lot of suppliers.
Payroll is a big one, when you need help with your work you will hire someone to assist but then how do you pay them?
There are two ways, either as a contractor through an ABN, or as an employee through a TFN.
There are a lot of extra obligations with payroll this is best done by a professional.
BAS / IAS Returns, these are where you report you GST & PAYG withholdings.
You can either lodge these monthly, quarterly, or yearly.
Quarterly is the best option as it has the least amount of fees and the most management workload.
What do you pay a BAS Agent?
The cost can vary from bookkeeper to bookkeeper.
- Some of them charge a fixed fee for the Lodgment plus extra for ongoing work.
- Other bookkeepers charge per hour.
- Also, others charge as a fixed monthly fee.
We at Pricing – Clients Needs Bookkeeping charge a fixed monthly fee, plus additional fixed amounts for payroll please see out website for extra charges.
A BAS Agent is not an employee.
Sure, you can pay an employee $30 per hour and a Professional may cost you $70 per hour or more, but a professional should be 4 times faster than an employee and more knowledgeable and experienced so it may end up costing you less.
Plus, it may be hard trying to find an employee for 2-3 hours a month this is where the contractors come in.
What can a BAS Agent not do?
They cannot advise clients on:
- An allowance income tax deduction or superannuation contributions.
- Advising on salary sacrifice arrangements and salary packing.
- Fringe benefits tax
- Income tax & Advise
- Advise on financial matters
But these days if a BAS Agent can get a 3rd party license, then they can also help with some of these items, as long as they get the advice from the 3rd party.
A BAS Agent can also now use a 3rd party license to lodge tax returns, so they are pretty much the go to when it comes to accounting services.
If you need help with your Lodgments, please contact us at Contact Us – Clients Needs Bookkeeping
