Start to finish, in plain language, for people who have never used bookkeeping software. Nothing here assumes you know what a general ledger is. Allow about twenty minutes the first time and five after that.
Internet banking access, a card, and the dates of the quarter or year you are reporting on. You do not need your accountant, your ABN paperwork, or last year's return in front of you.
This is the only fiddly part, and it is fiddly once. A CSV is just a spreadsheet file your bank can produce for any date range.
Log into internet banking on a computer rather than the phone app, because most banks hide the export behind a desktop-only screen. Find the business or everyday account you actually run the business through. Open its transaction list, then look for a link called Export, Download or Transaction history.
Set the date range to the period you are reporting. For a quarterly BAS that is the three months of the quarter. For end of year, use 1 July to 30 June. Choose CSV as the format, not PDF and not OFX or QIF, then save the file somewhere you can find it again, such as your desktop.
Open the file once before you upload it, just to check it looks like rows of dates, descriptions and amounts. If it opens as a wall of nonsense or a single column, you have most likely downloaded the wrong format. Go back and pick CSV.
One account per upload. If you run the business through two accounts, do two uploads and keep them separate. Do not paste them into one file.
CommBank: open the account, then Export transactions.
NAB: open the account, Transaction history, then Export.
ANZ: Search transactions, then the download icon.
Westpac: open the account, then Export transactions.
Any other Australian bank works too, as long as it gives you a standard CSV.
Four screens, and only one question needs any thought.
Go to taxbench.com.au and sign up with an email address and a password. There is no subscription to choose and no plan to compare. You are charged per upload, $29, and only when you upload something.
On your dashboard, press the Upload Bank CSV button. A small window opens asking for two things: your entity type and the file itself.
Sole Trader, Company, Trust, Partnership or Investment. This is how you are registered with the ATO, not how big you are. If you have never registered anything and you invoice under your own name and ABN, you are a Sole Trader. If you are unsure, your accountant or your ATO portal will tell you in seconds, and it is worth getting right because it shapes the reports.
Click the dashed box, pick the CSV you saved, and pay the $29. Processing takes a moment while every transaction is read and categorised, then the report opens on its own.
The AI gets most rows right and it will get some wrong, because a line that reads BP 4417 could be fuel for the ute or a pie on the way home. You are the only one who knows. Ten minutes here is what makes the numbers trustworthy.
The report opens on the Transactions tab, one row per transaction, each with a type, a category and a GST status. There is a search box and filters for type, category and GST so you can work through it in groups rather than top to bottom.
To fix one row, change its category or GST status directly on the row. To fix many at once, select the rows and apply the change to all of them. That bulk edit is the time saver: filter to everything from the same servo or supplier, select the lot, set them once.
What to look at, in order of how often it is wrong. Anything sitting in Other Business Expenses, because that is where the AI puts things it could not place. Personal spending that came out of the business account, which should not be claimed as an expense. Transfers between your own accounts, which are not income and not expenses. Large one-off purchases, which may be capital rather than a running cost. And the GST column on anything bought from overseas, since plenty of overseas services carry no Australian GST.
The GST settings you will see are GST Incl., GST Free, Input Taxed and Out of Scope. If GST was in the price you paid, it is GST Incl. Most bank fees and interest are Input Taxed. Wages and personal items are Out of Scope. Basic food and some medical are GST Free.
If you cannot explain to the ATO why a purchase was for the business, do not claim it. Leaving a doubtful expense out costs you a few dollars. Claiming one you cannot justify costs you a great deal more if you are ever asked.
Once the categories look right, the numbers are already done. They sit on the other two tabs and update as you edit.
The boxes on the business activity statement, worked out for you: G1 total sales, G2 export sales, G3 other GST-free sales, G10 capital purchases, G11 non-capital purchases, then 1A the GST you collected and 1B the GST you paid. Those labels match the ATO form, so lodging is a matter of copying each figure into the matching box.
Total income, total expenses and the profit left over, broken down by category. This is the page your accountant wants at tax time, and the page worth reading yourself, because it shows where the money actually went over a year.
Your reports stay in your account, and you can reopen an upload any time from the dashboard. To keep one outside TaxBench, use your browser's Print option and choose Save as PDF, which gives you a file to email or file away.
Give your accountant the P&L, or lodge the BAS yourself through myGov or the ATO Business Portal. Either way they are checking finished numbers instead of billing you to sort raw data.
No. You export a file and upload the file. There is no bank connection and no credentials to give up.
Upload the bank CSV anyway and compare. Fastest way to find what the spreadsheet missed.
No. If you are not registered, ignore the BAS tab and use the P&L. Registration is generally required once turnover reaches $75,000, and the ATO is the place to confirm your own position.
Yes. Export 1 July to 30 June and upload it once. Doing it quarterly means you are never facing a year of rows in one sitting, which is the real reason quarterly is easier.
Filter, select the rows and bulk edit them. If a whole account looks wrong, the usual cause is uploading a savings or personal account instead of the business one.
No, and it is not meant to. It replaces the hours of sorting that happen before your accountant starts, which is the part you are paying most for.
TaxBench produces reports from the data you give it and the categories you approve. It is not tax advice and it does not lodge anything with the ATO for you. Your accountant signs off, or you lodge it yourself.
Upload it and see the categories come back before you commit to anything.