BAS Agents can help your business with day-to-day accounts – recording sales and other transactions. But they can also do a lot more.
The tasks of a BAS Agent A BAS Agent is someone who not only records the financial transactions of your business.
They can also:
prepare and lodge your BAS & IAS
process your payroll liabilities
keep track of sales, purchases, payments and receipts
review and streamline office procedures
liaise with your accountant and maintain your financial records in the most profitable way for your business
Why do you need a BAS Agent? There are many good reasons to hire a BAS Agent. Here are three of them:
• They save you a ton of time.
• They help you understand your business finances.
• They can take a lot of stress out of managing things like cash flow.
If you started your own business, it’s likely that you’re passionate about running it and concentrating on the tasks you love doing. But if you’re like most business owners, you’re not so interested in recording all the details of every financial transaction.
There is a lot of information to track and record and without proper entry and maintenance it is easy for transactions to go unrecorded or left to pile up till it becomes a massive task. Mistakes could be made and important details could be lost or forgotten.
That's where BAS Agents come in. They can lighten the load on the business. They can take away the day-to-day recording of receipts, invoices and other transactions.
What do they actually do? BAS Agents are trained and registered with the Australian Tax Practitioners Board. They ensure all a business’s accounts are accurate and up-to-date. And they’ll report on those accounts regularly, so the owners and managers know where they stand financially. BAS Agents use the same financial recording methods as accountants. They do this so that at the end of the financial year your accountant can quickly and easily process your financial information.
They will:
Take all your receipts, invoices and other transaction details.
Record the information in accounting software using proper accounting methods.
Work with you to make sense of the numbers, for example assigning costs to specific clients.
Recognise and begin to deal with recurring financial issues such as poor cash flow or mounting debt
Identify the things that drive performance in your business (key performance indicators) and set up ways to measure and monitor them.
Process and lodge your monthly or quarterly BAS & IAS liabilities
But wait there's more!
BAS Agents are also able to advise you on:
add-on solutions to streamline your business workflow, such as POS tools and CRMs
payroll services to simplify the way you pay your staff
bookkeeping rescue work, tidying up mistakes made by inexperienced staff
training for small business on using accounting software.
They can also offer day-to-day support for small business owners. In fact a good BAS Agent is your partner in keeping things running smoothly within your business.
Other benefits of a BAS Agent
BAS Agents need minimum qualifications in order to register with the Tax Practitioners Board. These include 1400 hours experience, a Cert IV in bookkeeping or Accounting, PI insurance and ongoing study. Every 3 years a BAS Agent must complete 45 hours of study on complex topics, updates to the GST and tax laws, and industry changes so they can stay registered.
BAS Agents must also comply with the Code of Conduct set out by the Tax Practitioners Board. This requires them to be professional, honest, independent, confidential or competent. If a BAS agent breaches the code you can call the Tax Practitioners Board.
When hiring a registered BAS Agent you can check their registration status here, that way you know you have a qualified professional person for the job.
When should I hire a BAS Agent? The sooner the better. If you haven't already hired one, you should do it soon. Ideally you'd hire one soon after starting your business.
For any questions regarding this post contact Anytime Assist Bookkeeping on 0431 604 609.