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Who is ABN BAS and how can they assist BAS and non-BAS Agents
View the full list of services provided by ABN BAS
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Frequently asked questions about ABN BAS
The service offering of ABN BAS can be best summed up across three fronts:
Firstly, Quality Assurance Review and BAS Lodgement. For non-BAS Agents, this allows ABN BAS to assume the role of BAS Agent for your clients and attend to the review, preparation and electronic lodgement of their Activity Statements.
Second, a range of Supplementary BAS Services, such as lodgement deferral requests and interest remission requests. For non-BAS Agents, this allows ABN BAS to assume the role of BAS Agent for your clients and provide these services until you can provide them in your own right.
Thirdly, Resources & Support to assist BAS Agents and non-BAS Agents alike.
Each of these three service offerings can be explored further by clicking the tabs below.
For Non-BAS Agents, ABN BAS can assume the role of BAS Agent for your clients and attends to the review, preparation and electronic lodgement of their Activity Statements with the ATO.
For BAS Agents, ABN BAS can perform a Quality Assurance Review of specific Activity Statements that you will be lodging, so as to provide you with a second opinion and some peace of mind.
The starting point for an ABN BAS Quality Assurance Review is the completion by you of our sophisticated Excel tool, BAS Wizard, which can be downloaded by logging into the Member Centre, and clicking ABN BAS.
The extent of the information that must be supplied by you within BAS Wizard will depend on whether a Detailed Quality Assurance Review or a Limited Quality Assurance Review is taking place.
If ABN BAS will be acting as the BAS Agent for your client, a Detailed Quality Assurance Review is required. Broadly, this entails the following:
If ABN BAS will not be acting as the BAS Agent for your client, you may choose whether you would like a Detailed Quality Assurance Review or a Limited Quality Assurance Review. A Limited Quality Assurance Review is less rigorous. It still entails a range of arithmetical checks and reconciliation checks, but doesn’t involve an examination of individual transactions.
For Detailed Quality Assurance Reviews, our price is $77 for Business Activity Statements and $25 for Instalment Activity Statements. An Electronic Lodgement Fee of $22 applies in instances where ABN BAS is the client’s BAS Agent.
Additional fees apply if there are any “Reviewable Transactions” in existence, reflecting the checking and verification that ABN BAS must attend to. Each instance of a Reviewable Transaction will attract the following fees, with the exception of Imports where a customs broker has outlaid GST on your behalf, in which case it is the existence of this that gives rise to the additional fee, not the number if instances
For Limited Quality Assurance Reviews, our price is $36.30 for Business Activity Statements and $18.15 for Instalment Activity Statements.
Before you submit the BAS Wizard file to ABN BAS, you will be aware of the precise cost of our service as BAS Wizard will have calculated that for you.
Better than most, we understand the immense time pressures that our members often work under. Under our turnaround standard, we commit to completing our Quality Assurance Review & BAS Lodgement by 5pm on the seventh business day following the date submitted to ABN BAS.
A Tax Invoice for our service is produced from within BAS Wizard. The Tax Invoice is specific to the client’s Activity Statement that was the subject of the BAS Service, thus making it very evident that the BAS Service has been provided by ABN BAS and not by you.
You have the option to recover this fee from your client if you wish. In practice, we see a variety of approaches taken in this regard. The FAQ page within the ABN BAS Member Centre contains further information on this.
You do not pay ABN BAS upon receipt of the Tax Invoice. For ease of administration, we will email you a summary on the 1st business day of the following month which will take account of all ABN BAS Services for the previous calendar month. The total owing will be direct debited from your nominated bank or credit card account about 21 days later.
Under the Tax Agent Services Act 2009, only a registered Tax Agent or BAS Agent can represent a client in their communications with the ATO in relation to a BAS provision. This can make it difficult for bookkeepers who are not BAS Agents to get things done.
With your client’s authority, ABN BAS can assist and assume the role of their BAS Agent. This enables us to work with you in providing a range of supplementary BAS Services as detailed below.
You or your client may wish to obtain a statement showing the activity or balance on their ATO Integrated Client Account (ICA). The ICA is the ATO account that shows the transaction history relating to activity statements, including lodgement, payment, interest and fees. ABN BAS can communicate with the ATO on your client’s behalf to generate a statement showing the activity on a client’s ATO Integrated Client Account.
Your clients may be affected by exceptional and unforeseen circumstances that will impact on their ability to lodge their Activity Statement by the due date. ABN BAS can communicate with the ATO on your client’s behalf to request a lodgement deferral of their Activity Statement.
Your clients may require the issuing or reissuing of Activity Statements. This can be for a variety of reasons such as a back dated GST or PAYG Withholding registration or a change of postal address. ABN BAS can communicate with the ATO on your client’s behalf to request the issue or reissue of Activity Statements.
You may wish to ascertain which, if any, activity statements are outstanding for a client. This is commonly something you might like to check when you are engaged by a new client. ABN BAS can utilise the BAS Agent Portal to ascertain for you which, if any, activity statements are outstanding for a client.
Your client may have a credit balance on their Integrated Client Account (ICA) with the ATO. ABN BAS can communicate with the ATO on your client’s behalf to request the refund of the credit balance.
Your client may be charged penalties and/or interest by the ATO for which they wish to request a remission. ABN BAS can communicate with the ATO on your client’s behalf to request the remission of penalties and interest.
You may be unsure of the PAYG Instalment Amount or Rate which the ATO have applied to that Activity Statement. ABN BAS can provide you with the PAYG Instalment Amount or Rate that the ATO have applied to an Activity Statement.
If you are applying with the Tax Practitioners Board (TPB) to register as an individual BAS agent, you need to have a minimum number of hours of relevant experience. If you have utilised ABN BAS to provide Quality Assurance Reviews & BAS Lodgement for your clients, then the work that you performed when completing the BAS Wizard, as well as the work that you performed in the lead-up to the BAS will have counted as hours of relevant experience. When the time comes for you to apply for your BAS agent registration, ABN BAS can prepare and “sign off” on the Statement of relevant experience for BAS agent form which you will be required to submit to the TPB.
ABN BAS can perform a Quality Assurance Review on the Chart of Accounts and the default GST codes that you have created for a particular client’s Chart of Accounts. We will then provide you with confirmation that the Chart of Accounts is to our satisfaction, or provide you with recommendations for change, as the case may be.
You may wish to obtain copies of previously lodged Activity Statements. ABN BAS can obtain these for you.
If you participate in our Quality Assurance Review & BAS Lodgement process in order to provide BAS Services to your clients, this counts as hours of relevant experience. When the time comes for you to apply for your BAS agent registration, ABN BAS can prepare and “sign off” on the Statement of relevant experience for BAS agent form which you will be required to submit to the TPB. Visit our Gaining Relevant Experience page for a more in-depth look.
Engagement Letters are strongly recommended by the Tax Practitioners Board. A well-written engagement letter enables a BAS Agent or non-BAS Agent to clearly communicate to a client the key aspects of their professional relationship. Our ABN BAS Member Centre contains ready to use templates which have been professionally drafted.
Available from within the ABN BAS Member Centre, this is the pre-eminent industry reference for GST coding, PAYG withholding and PAYG instalment. It contains hyperlinks to the relevant ATO fact sheets and ABN Bookkeepers Knowledge Base editions, and features instructions on the likely tax code to be used across the five major accounting software packages and which labels on BASs and payment summaries are affected.
The ABN Helpline allows you to enjoy email-based support from our team of qualified accountants on bookkeeping, income tax, GST and BAS related matters. We can also provide you with a perspective on any ethical issues you may have encountered in your dealings with clients. You can use this service to assist you in solving a technical issue that may be proving to be a problem, or simply to seek a second opinion on advice received elsewhere.
