WHAT DOES ABN BAS OFFER? > BAS Agents

Membership of ABN BAS is complimentary and automatic to all Australian Bookkeepers Network (ABN) members.

If you are a BAS Agent, you will enjoy the following benefits from ABN BAS:

1.       ABN BAS Helpline.

Clients who engage BAS Agents are reliant on the services and advice that they receive. This imposes both responsibility and liability on the BAS Agent and with that, significant pressure to ensure that the advice provided is correct. ABN BAS relieves some of this pressure by providing BAS Agents with email-based helpline support from qualified accountants and tax agents. Whether it be some much-needed guidance on a complex GST or BAS matter, or simply a second perspective for peace-of-mind, the ABN BAS Helpline is an invaluable right-hand for BAS Agents.

2.        ABN BAS Email Bulletins.

The pace of change in bookkeeping is always rapid, and with the advent of the Tax Agent Services Act, more and more information – some reliable and some dubious – circulates the community. ABN BAS distils information from all of these sources to provide BAS Agents and Non-BAS Agents alike with reliable and informative updates on those matters that will impact them most.

3.       BAS Wizard Quality Assurance Framework.

BAS Wizard is a sophisticated Microsoft Excel spreadsheet that guides you step-by-step through the process of preparing Business Activity Statements for your clients. BAS Wizard has been the central pillar of certification services offered by ABN since 2001 under the old Section 251L “working under the direction” laws and has been developed further to cater for the new BAS Agent Laws.

While BAS Wizard will continue to play a key role in the BAS lodgement services that ABN BAS will provide to Non-BAS Agents, it will also be an invaluable tool for BAS Agents to make use of. It includes a range of reconciliations and proofs to verify the accuracy of your BAS, provides superb working papers by which to standardise the processes across your firm, and serves as a crucial audit trail of BASs that have been lodged. BAS Wizard complements all accounting software packages. Through ABN BAS, BAS Agents will continue to receive the latest version of BAS Wizard as it is updated to reflect changes in laws.

4.       Quality Assurance Reviews

As a BAS Agent, you are legally able to prepare and lodge BASs for your clients. However, for the following reasons, you may want ABN BAS’s qualified accountants and tax agents to conduct a Quality Assurance Review for you:

  • You may wish to receive an independent review of a BAS prepared by a new staff member;

  • You may wish to receive an independent review of BASs prepared by all staff members from time to time, for example annually;

  • The industry type that is the subject of the BAS may be of a kind you are unfamiliar with;

  • The BAS in question may contain one or more unusual or complex transactions.

Further information on ABN BAS’s Quality Assurance Reviews & BAS Lodgement, including pricing, can be found in the ABN Fact Sheet entitled Quality Assurance Reviews & BAS Lodgement.

5.       Technical Training

ABN BAS will be staging technical training sessions that will cover the topics that matter most to bookkeepers. They will be targeted specifically at bookkeepers who are involved with BAS services. Sessions will be pitched at differing levels with some suitable for principals and business owners, and others suitable for less experienced staff.

Whatever the subject matter, there will be a strong emphasis placed on understanding both the “why” and the “how”. They will have a practical focus, and will include coverage of how the underlying subject matter is handled in the major accounting software packages.

The Code of Professional Conduct places an onus on BAS Agents to ensure that the BAS Agent service they provide is to a competent standard, that they maintain their knowledge and skills, and that they take reasonable care to ensure that taxation laws are applied correctly to the circumstances relating to your client. Our technical training will play a key role in helping BAS Agents meet their obligations under the Code.

6. Complimentary, Secure Back-Ups.

As a value-added service, all BAS Wizard files submitted to ABN BAS – whether they be for Limited or Detailed Quality Assurance Reviews – will be stored on our secure server for five years, free-of-charge. This provides you with the peace of mind of knowing that there will be a reliable and secure snapshot of the reports, reconciliations and figures that underpin your client’s Activity Statements.

This is a very useful service as you may be called on to defend the BAS you have been involved in some years after the event either with the Tax Office, your client or the client’s accountant. This secure off-site storage guards against your BAS being called into question by retrospective changes made to a clients accounting file. It also guards against loss of your own workpapers and provides an independently stored set of workpapers and trail for BAS preparation that cannot be tampered with. 

You may request copies of any such back-ups simply by contacting ABN BAS.