Invoices, GST and the BAS worksheet

This is the side-hustle half of Clementine: send an invoice, know what is owed to you, and, if you are registered for GST, have a worksheet ready for each BAS. Clementine prepares the figures. You check them and lodge the BAS yourself, or through your agent.

Before your first invoice

Open Work, then Settings, and add your business name, your email and how you want to be paid. They go on every invoice. Add the people you invoice under Clients, and choose a design under Templates.

Sending an invoice

1. Under Work, choose New invoice. Pick the client, add your lines and a due date.
2. Choose Review PDF to see exactly what your client will get.
3. Send invoice emails it, with the PDF attached, from your own Gmail address once Gmail is connected. Without Gmail, save the PDF and send it yourself.
4. When the money arrives, open the invoice and choose Record payment.

Work, Invoices lists every invoice with where it stands: draft, sent with its due date, overdue, or paid. Anything outstanding is shown first. There is no limit on how many you send, on any plan.

If you are registered for GST

Open Tax, then Settings, and turn on Registered for GST. It asks for the date your registration took effect, how you account for GST (cash or non-cash) and how often you report. Use what the ATO has you on.

• Your invoices become tax invoices and show GST. Nothing dated before your registration carries GST.
• Choose whether the prices you type include GST. With GST included, a A$110 line is A$100 plus A$10 GST. With it added on top, a A$100 line has A$10 added.
• A tax invoice for A$1,000 or more has to show who the buyer is. The client’s name does that; add their ABN if you have it.

Not registered? Then your invoices are plain invoices with no GST on them and there is no BAS to do. The GST page shows your invoiced turnover for the last twelve months against the A$75,000 threshold, as a guide. It only counts invoices in Clementine, so check your full turnover against the ATO’s rules.

GST on what you buy

To claim the GST in a business purchase, open the transaction and set its business use. A cost that is part business and part private takes a percentage.

• Clementine takes one-eleventh of the price as the GST unless you enter the figure printed on the invoice. Do that when only part of a bill has GST in it.
• Tick I have a tax invoice when you do. For purchases over A$82.50 the credit waits until you have one.
• You can save a default for a category or a merchant, so the next one is already set.

Spending you have not tagged is treated as personal.

The BAS worksheet

Tax, GST has a worksheet for each period since your registration date. It shows the three figures a simple BAS asks for, and lists every invoice and purchase behind each one.

• Cash or non-cash. On a cash basis a sale counts in the period you were paid and a purchase in the period you paid. On a non-cash basis a sale counts when you issue the invoice, or when you are paid if that comes first.
• Whole dollars. The BAS reports whole dollars with the cents dropped. The worksheet shows the figures before and after.
• Not included. Anything that could not be counted, such as a purchase waiting on a tax invoice, is listed separately with the reason. Fix it and it moves across.
• Due dates. Quarterly BAS are due 28 October, 28 February, 28 April and 28 July. A reminder appears in your inbox in the app as each one approaches.

When you have lodged

Lodge and pay with the ATO yourself, or through your agent: Clementine does not lodge anything. Then choose Mark as lodged. That saves the figures as they were and locks the period, so later edits to your records do not quietly change a BAS you have already lodged. If your records change afterwards, the worksheet tells you. You can reopen a period if you need to.

You can download the worksheet as a PDF or a CSV file for your own records or your agent.