Preparing a client's Business Activity Statement is only as smooth as the records you get from them. Every quarter, the same bottleneck: you can't start until the documents are in, and the documents are never in. A clear, repeatable checklist makes the ask faster for you and easier for the client.
Here's a practical starting checklist. Exact requirements vary by client and registration — always confirm what applies.
Income & sales records
- Sales invoices issued for the quarter
- Point-of-sale or accounting software summaries
- Records of any cash sales
Purchases & expense records
- Supplier invoices and receipts (especially anything with GST)
- Records of any large or unusual purchases
Bank & financial records
- Business bank statements for the full quarter
- Statements for any business credit cards or loan accounts
Payroll (if registered for PAYG withholding)
- Wages paid and PAYG withheld for the quarter
- Superannuation records
Assets & motor vehicles
- Records of asset purchases or disposals
- Logbook or business-use percentage for motor vehicles, if claiming
How to collect it without the quarterly chase
The checklist is the easy half. The hard half is getting it from the client on time, every quarter, across your whole book. A few things that help: reuse the same checklist each quarter so clients know what's coming; request early instead of waiting until lodgment week; send automatic reminders rather than relying on yourself to follow up; and give a secure upload link instead of accepting email attachments.
This is the workflow DocFlow was built for: save a BAS document checklist as a reusable template, send it to a client in a click, and let automatic reminders collect everything through a secure portal — then push the data straight into Xero. The quarterly scramble becomes a quarterly routine.