Financial Statements & Tax Returns
Your numbers, done properly. Once a year, without the scramble.
Every company, trust and partnership, super fund and individual in Australia has to lodge. That part isn’t negotiable and it isn’t interesting.
What is interesting is what you get back. A set of financial statements is the only complete, reconciled picture of what your business or investment did last year. Most owners are handed one, sign it, and never look at it again. We prepare yours to be lodged and to be used.
Follow each entity through to the statements and returns it needs.
What you get
Prepared to be lodged, and to be used
A set of financial statements you don’t understand is a set you can’t use, and signing something you haven’t had explained is a habit worth breaking.
- Annual financial statements
Profit and loss, balance sheet, and the notes that explain both.
- The tax return for your entity
Company, trust, partnership, sole trader or self-managed superannuation fund structure.
- Returns for the entities behind it
So the group is consistent rather than lodged in pieces.
- Your file reconciled
Xero or MYOB reconciled back to the financial statements we prepare, with the differences explained rather than adjusted away.
- A conversation before you sign
A short walk through what the numbers show. That last one is not standard in this industry. It should be.
Two different documents
The tax return is not the whole job
If nobody walks you through the statements, you’ve paid for a lodgement and thrown away the analysis.
Tells the ATO what it needs to know, built to a template that has nothing to do with how you run your business.
Where margins live, where your labour cost as a percentage of revenue lives, and where the drift between last year and this year shows up.
Structures we work across
Most businesses of any size aren’t one entity
A trading company, a trust that holds it, a second entity holding the property, and personal returns behind all of it.
Getting the group right matters more than getting any single return right. A well-prepared return sitting inside a badly structured group is a tidy answer to the wrong question.
- Companies
Including Division 7A loan accounts, franking accounts and director loans.
- Discretionary and unit trusts
Including the distribution minutes, which have their own deadline.
- Partnerships
Where the return allocates rather than taxes.
- Sole traders
Where the business return and your personal return are the same document.
- Self-managed superannuation funds
A tax-effective structure built for your retirement, with the compliance that comes with it.
An illustrative group map. The exact ownership and relationships depend on the business.
Why last year isn’t a plan
A return is a rear-view mirror
Owners who only ever see their accountant at lodgement time make every decision for the year on numbers that are eight months old by the time they arrive. The hire, the equipment purchase, the price increase you didn’t put through — all made blind.
That’s not an argument for more compliance. It’s an argument for the compliance being the start of the conversation rather than the end of it.
- 30 June
The year closes. From here on, every number in it is history.
- Around February
The statements and the return arrive, about eight months after the period they describe.
- In between
The hire, the equipment purchase, the price increase. All decided on last year’s numbers, or on none.
- The alternative
A look at the numbers part-way through the year, while there is still time to act on what they say.
Enacted 26 June 2026 · effective 1 July 2027
The change that makes this year’s statements matter more
Assets held on 30 June 2027 are treated as sold immediately before 1 July 2027 and reacquired at market value. For anyone holding business assets, goodwill or private company shares, that creates a need for defensible market value evidence at a specific date, less than twelve months away.
Where the evidence starts
Clean, current financial statements are where any credible valuation starts. If your statements are a year behind, so is your evidence.
Business ValuationWhat the deemed disposal means for your business, and what the evidence needs to look like.
Bookkeeping
Working with your bookkeeper
...or without one
Bookkeeping ServicesIf the file has drifted past the point of being useful. Subject to capacity, so worth asking early.
If you have a bookkeeper you trust, keep them. We’ll work to their file and tell them what we need, rather than quietly redoing their work and billing you for it.
What it costs
Fixed, and agreed before we start
You’ll know the number before you commit to it, and it won’t move unless the scope does.
- The number of entities
A single trading company is straightforward. A group of four is not, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.
- The state of the file
A clean Xero file and a drifted one are different pieces of work.
- Transactions that need real thought
A property sale in the year changes the job, and we would rather say so before starting than after.
What happens after we lodge
For most firms, nothing
The return goes in, the invoice goes out, and you hear from them next year. The statements we’ve just prepared are the raw material for every decision you’ll make in the next twelve months.
Income Tax & CGT PlanningDone before 30 June, while the outcome can still be changed.
Business Advisory & CFO AdvisoryWhere the numbers stop being a record and start being a decision.
Start here
Your structure, your current file and what’s actually due.
A consultation to look at your structure, your current file and what’s actually due. No obligation to move. If you’re happy with your current accountant, we’ll tell you that too.
Book a consultation