It's everyone's favourite time of year! Christmas End of the Financial Year! You've been waiting all year for it, haven't you? No? Really?
We know it can sometimes be confusing for small business owners in Australia to work out what you're supposed to be doing at this time of year, so here's our Easy guide to the end of the financial year, and what you need to do.
Make sure you're up-to-date with your invoicing, expenses and payroll. With so much going on, it's really easy to forget to invoice for work done, or forget a deduction on a payslip or forget about a deductible business expense. And that just costs you more money (and also lots more time!) later.
So get on top of what you need to do.
Hint: You can use Easy Business App to keep track of all your income and outgoings, and manage your payroll and invoices too.
Have employees? You must submit your Final STP for FY2023 to the ATO no later than July 14th. It's always worth running some reports, cross-checking you haven't double-paid any wages etc... before doing so, but then you can lodge your Final STP in a couple of clicks in Easy Payslip.
Here's that date again — July 14th. Don't miss it. If you do, your employees won't be able to do their own tax returns, and you'll go on the ATO's naughty list (it kind of is like Christmas...)
Due Date: July 14th (third time, but people forget this every year...)
Your Business Activity Statement (BAS) for the June quarter is due by July 28th. You'll need to get details of all your revenue, GST, payroll expenses, super etc... and you can then complete the BAS form on the ATO portal. Or you can ask your accountant to do it for you.
Due Date: July 28th
Hint: We have a very handy BAS Report in Easy Reports that can generate all this for you with a couple of clicks/taps. Then you can just copy the numbers into the form, and you're done!
This is a great time of year to really assess your business health.
Are you making money? Awesome! Where? From who? What are your costs?
Are things looking a bit tricky? What can you change? What help might be available? How can you get ahead of things?
The easiest way to do this is to run a Profit & Loss report for your business, which sounds like one of those mildly scary things that accountants are always talking about, but is actually really easy. Take a few minutes to familiarise yourself with the numbers and you'll almost certainly discover something to help you run your business better.
Hint: Guess what? Easy Reports has a Profit & Loss report you can run in seconds, and you can tap on any number to drill-down and see the payslip/expense/invoice that it came from. This lets you really understand what's going on in your reports — it's not just numbers, it's your business!
This is the one people "never get round to". We know. Us too.
This is the perfect time of year to look forward. You've run your P&L report (see the step above) and now you need to think about where you want to be in 12 months time.
Can you afford to expand? Do you need more customers? Are you so busy that it's the perfect time to hire an apprentice? Could you do with a part-time bookkeeper to help with your admin and free up some more time? Do you want to work less? Do you want to work more?
Set yourself some financial goals and some personal goals. And don't neglect the personal goals. Small business owners are amongst the most stressed out and over-worked segment in Australia. So, make sure you carve out some time for yourself, your family and your friends, too. You deserve it.
Hint: We don't have an app to help with this part — we'd recommend a pen and paper, or the notes app on your phone to start with. And your brain. That's the most important thing. Give yourself some time and space to think.
End of Financial Year doesn't have to be scary. Make a note of the key dates above, talk to your accountant if you have any specific questions, and you can always reach out to us if you have any questions about using Easy Business App.