Designing the compliance calendar before the first invoice

What was broken

A newly incorporated electric vehicle startup was preparing to commence commercial operations with manufacturing, research, and distribution activities spread across multiple states. The founders wanted to avoid the common mistakes made by growing startups and sought to establish robust compliance systems before scaling.

What we did

CapEasy designed an end-to-end compliance framework covering accounting systems, indirect-tax registrations, payroll, company-registry filings, secretarial compliance, taxation, board governance, statutory registers, and regulatory calendars. Internal reporting processes and management review mechanisms were also implemented to support future growth.

Where it landed

The startup launched operations with institutional-grade compliance systems, enabling management to focus on product development and fundraising without recurring regulatory concerns.

Registration is the first fixed date on the calendar, not a formality to clear

Incorporating an Australian proprietary company creates an ACN and, on the same day, an ASIC annual review date fixed to that registration anniversary — it never moves with the financial year or any other reporting cycle the company later adopts. ASIC sends the annual statement to a single address, chosen in priority order: a registered agent address if one is appointed, then the officeholder portal, then the registered office. A company that has not lined up that address before it starts trading is not skipped when the notice goes out; it simply does not see it, and the 2-month clock to pay the fee, correct any wrong details and pass a solvency resolution runs regardless.

For a standard proprietary company the annual review fee is currently $342, with a two-tier late fee of $102 if paid within a month of the due date and $428 beyond that — applied a second time, separately, if the company also misses the 28-day window to correct wrong details on the statement. None of that is a large sum against an EV manufacturer's capital needs; the reason it matters at incorporation is that the review date, and who receives the notice, are decisions made once and inherited every year after.

GST and payroll registration follow revenue and hiring, not a single incorporation-day checklist

GST registration in Australia is not automatic on incorporation — it is triggered by turnover, tested two ways. Current GST turnover looks at the trailing 12 months; projected GST turnover looks at the coming 12 months, and a business that can reasonably be expected to cross $75,000 in the year ahead must register within 21 days even if it has not yet invoiced a dollar. A manufacturing and distribution business signing early contracts is exactly the profile the projected-turnover test is built to catch on day one, not after a full trading year.

Payroll compliance layers on as soon as the first employee is engaged: Single Touch Payroll reports wage and super data to the ATO every pay run, and the super guarantee — 12% of an employee's qualifying earnings, the final step of a rate schedule that finished rising on 1 July 2025 — now runs on Payday Super rather than a quarterly cycle. From 1 July 2026, contributions must reach the employee's fund within 7 business days of each payday, and a missed or short payment is assessed directly by the ATO as a super guarantee charge rather than self-reported by the employer. A company hiring across manufacturing, R&D and distribution roles in different states is running that 7-business-day clock on every payday from the first pay run, not from whenever payroll gets formalised.

The BAS and close rhythm that keeps the calendar from becoming a fire drill

Quarterly BAS falls due on a fixed pattern — 28 October, 28 February, 28 April and 28 July, with the December quarter alone stretched to two months because it spans the calendar year-end. A business lodging electronically through a registered agent can sometimes get a further concessional date on top of that, but the concession belongs to the agent's own lodgment-program standing with the ATO, not to the business, so it is a conversation with the agent rather than an assumption. Either way, the BAS is only as accurate as the ledger behind it: GST coding done correctly at the transaction level, bank accounts reconciled to the general ledger, and payroll data current — all monthly work that has to be finished before the quarter closes, not reconstructed under a 28th-of-the-month deadline.

The transferable discipline is sequencing, not any single filing: fix the registrations and the calendar first — ASIC review date, GST registration test, STP and super setup — then build the monthly close (reconciled accounts, coded transactions, a management pack) that feeds every one of those dates on schedule. CapEasy's bookkeeping and payroll-data work keeps that monthly close current and the ledger reconciled; ascertaining a GST or super guarantee position, lodging a BAS or STP report, and dealing with ASIC or the ATO on the company's behalf are prepared for and run through the company's registered BAS or tax agent.