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Revision 2 – November 2019
- Accounts – an Account refers to Assets, Liabilities, Income, Expenses and Equity, represented by individual codes.
- Accrual – an accounting method that records income and expenditure when they are incurred, regardless of when funds change hands.
- BAS – Business Activity Statement – a form submitted to the Australian Tax Office by registered businesses entities to report their tax obligations.
- Cash Based – an accounting method where income is recognized when cash is received and expenses are recognized when they are paid.
- Company – Refers to your Company. This is opposed to Clients and Suppliers/Trades.
- Field – Fields are where you enter your data, an Entry is made up of different Fields.
- Report – A Report in Constructor is a document generated from information stored in Constructor.
- General Ledger – a set of numbered Accounts a business uses to keep track of its financial transactions and to prepare Reports.
- Grid – The Grid refers to the table of Entries on a Screen made up of rows and columns.
- GST – Goods and Services Tax – a value added tax levied on most goods and services sold for domestic consumption.
- ID – a unique identifier for every new Project, Account, Client, Supplier etc AND every transaction.
- Invoices – are Accounts Payable tax Invoices that are received from Supplier / Trades. These can be generated automatically from Purchase Orders or created manually.
- Journals – a record of financial transaction – these can be automatically generated by the system or manually entered by the user.
- PAYG – Pay As You Go – a withholding tax which requires you to pay incremental amounts of your business’s income to the Australian Tax Office.
- Reconciliation – an accounting process that uses two sets of records to ensure figures are correct and in agreement.
- Summary – A Summary is a more detailed output of the selected Entry or open Screen. Entries can have multiple Summary Tabs, each detailing a particular category of that Entry. These categories are used as the tab name for the Summary.
- Suppliers / Trades – are all of your Accounts Payable business contacts that the Company can owe money to.
- Transactions – are all the accounting entries made in Constructor and include (but are not limited to), Journals, Claims, Receipts, Invoices, Payments.
If your business is registered for GST, you will need to lodge a Business Activity Statement (BAS). A BAS statement is submitted to the ATO to report on tax obligations, including GST, PAYG (Pay as you go withholding tax and instalments), fringe benefit and other applicable taxes.
In Constructor, the figures are calculated for you, in the format of the BAS so that all you need do is fill in the amounts in the appropriated boxes. However, as with any accounting software, the information produced is only as good as the information entered, so every BAS return should be reconciled BEFORE the return is submitted to the ATO.
Once the BAS return is saved in Constructor, the periods associated with it will become closed for posting, except by Administrator Users.
Your GST reporting and payment cycle will be one of the following:
- Monthly – if your GST turnover is $20 million or more.
- Quarterly – if your GST turnover is less than $20 million – and the ATO have not told you that you must report monthly.
- Annually – if you are voluntarily registered for GST. That is, you are registered for GST; and your GST turnover is under $75,000 ($150,000 for not-for-profit bodies).
The BAS Worksheet is where the system will collate the information needed to prepare your BAS (Business Activity Statement) return for the ATO. To open the Worksheet, please go to Accounting, General Ledger, BAS Worksheet:
The BAS Worksheet is divided into a number of tabs. It will open on the Configure tab (1). Start by entering the BAS Period End Date (2).
Ensure the Frequency (3) is set to the correct option for your Company.
Choose the Accounting Basis you use for submitting your returns, either Cash or Accrual (4).
GST Reporting Options (5) are defined by the ATO. Each one has a slightly different set of disclosures. It is your responsibility to ensure you have chosen the correct Reporting Option.
- Option 1 – Calculate GST and report each Monthly/Quarterly
- Option 2 – Calculate GST and report Annually
- Option 3 – Pay GST Instalment Amount.
The bottom half of the screen contains settings you can use if you are Withholding PAYG or paying PAYG in instalments. It is your responsibility to ensure these settings are correct for you Company.
When the configuration is set correctly, click Prepare Worksheet and Statement for Printing (6). This will populate the remainder of the tabs.
The GST Worksheet tab contains the collated information on GST that is recorded in your system.
The information is gathered from the system and placed into the appropriate classification (G1 through to G15). The default link between this screen and your transaction information is held against each Chart of Account record (Accounting, General Ledger, Chart of Accounts).
In the example below, whenever a transaction is posted to the account 4.1001 Sales – Residential Housing, the GST Default for Income will be assigned to whatever is set against the Account for Default Code – Supplies (1). If this is incorrect, you can change it here:
Whenever a transaction is raised for this Account code (1), the Detail line will default to IG, as set above (2). This can be changed at the time the transaction is raised.
The GST codes (IE, IF, IG etc) are hardcoded in the system to link to the G1 – G15 categories that the ATO require you to report by.
The GST Worksheet is broken into two sections:
- GST you owe from Claims (1)
- GST you are owed from Invoices (2)
You can click on any of the G code links (3) to see the transactions that are included in any particular section:
At this point, it is also possible to produced a report for comparison to the figures on the screen. Go to Print, GST Transaction Lists, Details Accrual Based:
If the figures are different, you should perform a reconciliation. Generally, the GST control account will be the account to reconcile this report to.
Go to Accounting, General Ledger, Chart of Accounts.
Navigate to the GST Account that is being reconciled (1) and click View Movements (2):
Enter the correct date range (1) and click Print (2). The Report options screen will pop up. Click Print again.
The Report will pop up in the same date order as the BAS report for ease of reconciliation.
During your GST reconciliation, if you find any of the information to be incorrect, please check the GST defaults set against your Chart of Account records, which may have been incorrectly set. Also check the transactions as they may have an incorrect tax coding set against them.
This Worksheet summarises your PAYG information. As for the GST Worksheet, you can drill down on any of the W codes (1) to see the detailed information.
The remaining tabs show the BAS Information in the same format as the forms themselves, so that you can fill in the forms and submit to the ATO.
Please make sure you Reconcile the return. The reports available to assist you in this can be accessed from the Print button (1) and include:
- BAS (Client Copy) to keep for your own records
- GST Transaction Summary (for both Accrual and Cash based accounting)
- GST Transaction Detailed (for both Accrual and Cash based accounting)