Prepare an income tax return
Start a client's return for the year, fill in the labels and schedules, check the working and get it ready to sign.
- Start the return
- Fill in labels
- Review
- Client signs
- Lodged
Each client has one income tax return per financial year. Billbook picks the right form from the client type and works out the tax as you type.
How do I start a return?
- Open the client and go to TaxIncome tax.
- Pick the Financial year.
- Choose the start button for that year's return.
- For a person, set Residency: Resident, Foreign resident or Part-year resident.
The badge next to the year shows the form, like Individual return, and the status, like Draft.
How do I fill it in?
The labels are grouped like the ATO form, under headings such as Income, Deductions, Tax offsets and Medicare. Each shows its ATO item code.
- Type each figure into its label. It saves when you leave the field.
- Clear a field to remove its value.
- Add schedules, like rental properties or capital gains, under Schedules.
Deductions and offsets can't be negative. A label marked from schedules ↓ is added up from the schedules below, so you change it there, not on the label.
How do schedules work?
Each schedule type has its own card. Choose the add button on the card, rename the new row, then fill in its fields. The card shows each row's net, or the gain or loss for capital gains.
- Salary and wages, per payer: one row per employer. Tax withheld adds to the PAYG credits.
- Rental properties: income and expenses per property, scaled by the ownership share.
- Capital gains: proceeds less cost base per disposal. Losses come off first, then the discount applies to gains held long enough.
- Business & professional items: a sole trader's income and expenses.
- Trust & partnership distributions and Managed fund distributions: shares of income, franking credits and amounts withheld.
- Foreign income and Private health insurance policies.
To remove a row, choose the bin and then Remove. It deletes the row and everything entered on it.
Rental property shared with another client? Pick it under Shared property, and the ownership share follows the property's split for the year.
What do the pull buttons do?
They're in the ⋯ menu next to the return's other buttons, while the return can still be changed.
- Pull from ledger: for a company, trust or partnership, brings the profit before tax in from the client's financial statements. Your add-backs stay as they are.
- Pull spouse income: for a person, copies their spouse's income in for the Medicare levy surcharge and other family tests. See Spouse and family.
- Prefill Coming soon: for a person, pulls the ATO's pre-fill into the labels, marked ATO. It shows once ATO lodging is live.
How do I check the figures?
The tiles show Taxable income, Tax on income, Net tax and the Estimated refund or Estimated payable. The line under them lists the levies, offsets and credits that make up the difference.
Open How we worked this out for every step, grouped from income through to the result. Each step shows the figures it used, the law it follows and whether each figure is confirmed. Choose Print workpaper for a PDF of the same working for your file.
A year with provisional figures in the rule book shows a warning above the return, and the tiles say they're an estimate. A year the rule book doesn't hold at all can't be worked out or lodged.
Who can prepare a return?
Anyone with the tax permission can start, edit and send a return, and download the return PDF, the estimate letter and the workpaper. Staff have it by default. Without it, you can see the return but those downloads don't show. Recording a return as lodged or assessed, or amending it, needs the lodging permission, which partners have.
What happens when it's ready?
- Choose Pre-lodgement review for automated checks. It never changes the return.
- Clear anything under Before you can lodge, like a missing TFN or refund account.
- Send it with Send for signature.
- Once it's signed, lodge it in Online services for agents and choose Record as lodged. Lodging from Billbook Coming soon comes later.
- When the notice arrives, choose Mark assessed and attach it.
Once it's sent for signing, the return is locked. To change it, open the ⋯ menu and choose Recall to make changes. After lodging, choose Amend return instead. See Lodge and record for each step.
Next
Individual, company, trust, partnership and SMSF returns
Which return each client gets, and what's different about each one in Billbook.
Send a return to your client to sign
Email the return to the right people to review and sign, then check when it's signed.
Review, lodge and record a tax return
Run the pre-lodgement review, clear what's missing, record the return as lodged and attach the notice of assessment.
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