BAS Category Table Set-Up

Use the BAS (Business Activity Statement) Categories Table to specify account codes and ranges of account codes that will allow you to monitor areas of business activity. This can also be useful in assisting you to fill in the Australian Business Activity Statement.

In order to complete sections G10-G20 of the Business Activity Statement you must report on the creditable and non-creditable acquisitions your business has made. The purpose of setting up the BAS Category Table is to tell the BAS Assist Report which expense or general ledger account codes relate to the BAS categories required by the Tax Office.

For example, your 'Trading Stock' would be assigned to your taxable acquisitions category. 'Bank Fees' would be assigned to the 'GST Free' category and so on. In order to be able to set-up your BAS Category Table you must be able to determine which expense or general ledger codes in your system relate to the following BAS categories:

• Taxable acquisitions

• GST free acquisitions

• Capital acquisitions

• Input taxed acquisitions

If you are unsure of the definitions of these terms you should consult the appropriate Tax Office documentation explaining the GST or take the matter up with your accountant.

Table Entries

To access the BAS Categories Table do the following:

1. Start the INSTALLATION Workshop.

2. Select the Install menu.

3. Select Taxes.

4. Select BAS Categories.

Press the Add button to add a new category, or press the Edit button to edit an existing category. Press the Delete button to delete a category. The category definition includes:

Category

The category code. Use the category code to define the account code or 'group' of account codes whose totals make up this category.

You can create your own category codes although some codes serve specific purposes and should be used as indicated.

Codes for reporting on the Business Activity Statement with specific purposes include:

The following codes have no specific meaning to the BAS Assist report but are suggested for ease of understanding:

From Account

The account or expense code from your expense table or chart of accounts (if you are running the general ledger) to include in the category.

To Account

The account or expense code from your expense table or chart of accounts (if you are running the general ledger) to include in the category. If this is not specified it will default to the same code as what was entered in From Account.

You should never repeat the same account or expense code in more than one BAS Category. For example, if code "20100 - Advertising", is assigned to the BAS Category GST, it should NOT be assigned to any other BAS Category.

Percentage Use

The percentage of the total allocated to this account. This defaults to 100. If you specified 25, then only 25 per cent of the total allocated to the account would be used in report calculations. This would be useful if a certain percentage of an account allocation is for private use or is not claimable as a deductible business expense.

The Percentage Use field is used by the BAS Assist Report to determine what percentage of GST can be claimed for any particular BAS Category. If the BAS Category is GST free or input taxed, you do not need to specify Percentage Use, so leave it set to 100.

You can only define one percentage use rate per BAS Category. If you have different 'percentage use' rates, you must create additional BAS Categories.

Tax Percentage

The tax as a percentage, that is normally applied to this category.

You can only define one tax percentage per BAS Category. If you have different tax percentages you need to define, you must create additional BAS Categories.

Example #1 - Defining the CAPITAL Acquisitions Group

Using the standard CAPITAL chart of accounts found in CAPITAL GL Controller, the following account codes are normally treated as CAPITAL acquisitions:

35100 - Furniture & Fittings

35200 - Plant & Equipment

You may also have added your own capital acquisition accounts which should be included as well. To define this category do the following:

1. Press Add to add a new category definition.

2. In the Category field enter: CAPITAL and press Tab.

3. In the From Account field enter: 35100 and press Tab.

4. In the To Account field enter 35100 and press Tab.

5. In the Percentage Use field press Tab.

6. Press the Save button.

7. Repeat steps 1-5, except in step 3 enter 35200 instead.

8. Repeat the above procedure for each additional account code that relates to capital acquisitions. Other possible categories include account codes used for recording purchases of motor vehicles, land and buildings, etc.

If you have a range of capital acquisition account codes that you wish to include, you can specify a From Account and a To Account range, rather than enter each account code as a separate entry in the table. All accounts between the range specified will then be included automatically.

Be sure that you do not accidently include expense codes that are not capital acquisitions. Also remember that an expense code should not appear more than once in your BAS Category table.

Be careful to ensure that you enter the category code correctly. If you mistype the category you will end up with a new category based on the mistyped category code.

Special rules may also apply to what falls under the definition of a capital acquisition. You should confirm the latest accounting procedures with your accountant as special conditions may exist now and may change in the future. For example, a capital acquisition may only be defined as such, if the amount being allocated is greater than $300. Rules such as these are subject to change in the future.

Example #2 - Defining The GST Free Tax Acquisitions Group

Using the standard CAPITAL chart of accounts found in CAPITAL GL Controller, the following account codes are normally treated as GST Free acquisitions:

20200 - Bank Fees

21000 - Interest Paid

You may also have added your own GST Free tax acquisition accounts which should be included as well.

1. It is important that you do not end up assigning input taxed or tax free or taxed transactions to the same expense account. If some transactions are input taxed and others are taxed normally, you will need to create additional expense codes so that you can assign them appropriately.

2. To define this category do the following:

3. Press the Add button to add a new category definition.

4. In the Category field enter: GSTFREE and press Tab.

5. In the From Account field enter: 20200 and press Tab.

6. In the To Account field press Tab.

7. In the Percentage Use field press Tab.

8. In the Tax Percentage field change 10.00 (the default) to 0.00

9. Press Save.

10. Repeat steps 1-5, except in step 3 enter 21000 instead.

11. Repeat the above procedure for each additional account code that is GST Free.

If you have a range of GST Free acquisition account codes that you wish to include, you can specify a From Account and a To Account range, rather than enter each account code as a separate entry in the table. All accounts between the range specified will then be included automatically.

Be sure that you do not accidently include expense codes that are NOT GST Free in the GST FREE Category. Also remember that an expense code should not appear more than once in your BAS Category table.

Other BAS Categories

The other main BAS categories you should define include:

The BAS Categories that have special meanings are CAPITAL and INPUTTAX. You must use these category codes when defining your capital acquisitions and input taxed acquisition groups.

The names of the other categories are not important (so long as you use them consistently!) You can add further categories if you wish, if you decide that would be helpful.

If you have an expense or chart of accounts code that is allocated to more than one category, then you must split the code into two or more divisions.

For example:

20355 - Education & Training

Might need to be split into:

20355 - Education & Training (Taxed)

20360 - Education & Training (GST Free)