Hands up who could say that if the Australian Taxation office did a review, you would have every receipt or invoice on hand in a moment’s notice?
In our experience not many businesses can.
Do you have piles of paperwork surrounding you but are still missing receipts?
This article is about what the Australian Taxation requires and how to create a paperless office.
The ATO requires businesses to keep documentary evidence to support deductions & GST credit claims. These must be kept for 5 years. If the ATO does a review, the onus is on the business to provide proof of expenses and sales. If there is no valid record, the deduction will not be allowed, and penalties may be applied if proper records are not retained. You can see the full requirements here “Record keeping for Business”.
It is useful for warranty and refund purposes to keep records of your receipts.
No-one wants paper anymore as so much time is spent on collecting the mail, filing, scanning, and emailing documents and receipts to your bookkeeper or accountant. Constant follow up by your bookkeeper of what payments were for costs time and money on both sides.
Automated document collection & storage has come a long way in the wake of Covid-19. More & more businesses are learning to manage working from home with online secure electronic signing systems and automated document storage.
With our Xero clients, we use Hubdoc at Eco Bookkeeping, as this is free to use with a Xero subscription. We set this up for all our clients and they just need to download a mobile app. Using the App, they take photos of any receipts whilst at the checkout and it automatically goes to a secure document filing system which integrates with Xero. If you have received an invoice by email, just forward it to your own Hubdoc email for storage. We also ask our clients to email all suppliers with a specific email address to send all statements, invoices, and document to your secure document storage. There are also many suppliers that can automatically be linked to your account and your receipt can automatically be sent to secure storage at the time of purchase.
For a little look at how it Hubdoc works click here.
You can also use Dext, formally known as Receipt Bank so click here to see more. This works with MYOB and Xero and a fee is payable depending on the amount of your transactions and the number of users. As you can see there is no reason why even the smallest business cannot have this great automation and give you back time to work on growing your business.
When looking for a bookkeeper we suggest that you look for a Xero bookkeeper or a MYOB bookkeeper that works with automated document management.
We are your Gold Coast Bookkeeper, please feel free to discuss this article or any other matters. Contact us here.
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