What is startup bookkeeping?
Books built to survive diligence, from the first transaction.
Startup bookkeeping in Australia turns into a different job the moment a company is on a raise track, and the trigger is the deal, not the calendar: a convertible note landing in the account, a term sheet circulating, a board meeting where a director asks for a KPI page instead of a bank balance. Books built for that moment carry source-document backup behind every entry — the signed convertible note deed or share subscription agreement behind every equity line, the customer contract behind every dollar sitting in deferred revenue.
Convertible note and priced-round proceeds get recorded exactly as the signed deed states, never as our own read of the round. An Australian convertible note (whether it carries a discount, a valuation cap, or both, and however its maturity and conversion triggers are drafted) is entered as the instrument type the deed specifies — typically a liability or equity depending on the conversion terms, never revenue, never a straight loan by default. When the note converts in a priced round, the resulting share allotment is booked to match the conversion mechanics in the closing documents and the updated share register, and the register itself is kept current for whoever lodges the ASIC change.
Why it matters
| Without a system | With CapEasy |
|---|---|
| Month-end arrives whenever someone gets to it | Books closed on a fixed date, in the same shape every month |
| Unexplained transactions pile up in a suspense account until year-end | Every account reconciled to the statement, with discrepancies explained not plugged |
| Your accountant bills you to fix bookkeeping before they can do their own work | A short questions list instead of a year-end archaeology project |
| You cannot answer "how did we do last month" without a week of digging | Whoever files opens a finished file |
What we need from you
Financial
- Bank and card statements
- Sales invoices
- Supplier bills
- Expense receipts
- Payroll summaries
- Loan statements
System
- Chart of accounts
- Opening balances
- Accounting software access (read/write, least privilege)
- Multi-currency details if applicable
Context
- Prior period financial statements
- Your accountant’s coding preferences
- Anything unusual we should expect
How it runs, step by step
- Transaction recording & classification
- Daily transaction entry
- Revenue and expense categorisation
- Capital vs operating classification
- Ledger & trial balance
- General ledger review
- Sub-ledger reconciliation
- Chart of accounts restructuring
- Reconciliation
- Monthly bank and card reconciliation
- Discrepancy investigation, with a written explanation
- Multi-account and multi-entity reconciliation
- Catch-up & clean-up
- Working back from the last clean period
- An honest read on how far back the records support
- Rebuilding to current
Who does what
| Your CapEasy team | Startup bookkeeping, the reconciliations and reporting behind it, and the questions list that keeps it honest. |
| Your registered BAS or tax agent | Everything that carries a licence in Australia — rendered exactly as written: work out what goes on your bas, or advise you on it — under tasa 2009 that requires registration we do not hold. |
| You | One conversation with one named person, and the decisions that are genuinely yours. |
Startup bookkeeping in Australia
Deferred revenue and AASB 15
Cash collected for a subscription or contract isn't recognised as revenue on receipt — under AASB 15, it's deferred and released to the P&L as the performance obligation is satisfied, typically ratably over the contract term. We build and maintain the deferred revenue schedule against the actual subscription start and end dates in your contracts; your accountant relies on that schedule when annual financial statements or the company tax return are prepared.
The R&D Tax Incentive — AusIndustry registration and the ATO schedule
A company claiming the R&D Tax Incentive must register eligible R&D activities with AusIndustry within ten months of the end of the income year, then claim the tax offset via the R&D Tax Incentive schedule lodged with the company tax return. The offset rate depends on aggregated turnover and is refundable or non-refundable accordingly. Both steps depend on clean, project-coded cost and time data. We capture and organise that data; your tax agent or R&D consultant determines eligibility, prepares the registration, and lodges the schedule.
ASIC share register and Form 484 lodgement
Every share allotment — a note converting, a priced round closing, an ESOP grant vesting into shares — needs the company's ASIC record updated, typically via a Change to Company Details (Form 484), within 28 days of the change. We keep the share register data (holder, class, number of shares, date of issue) reconciled inside the books as allotments happen; lodging the change with ASIC is a director, company secretary, or registered agent function, not a bookkeeping one.
GST on SaaS subscriptions and GST-free exports
Subscription revenue from Australian customers is generally a taxable supply and flows into the quarterly BAS. Revenue from a customer who is a non-resident and outside Australia when the service is supplied can qualify as GST-free under section 38-190 of the GST Act — but whether a specific customer or contract meets that test is a GST determination, which under TASA 2009 s.90-10 is a BAS service reserved for a registered BAS or tax agent. What we do is code every subscription by customer billing location and residency indicator inside the books, so the registered agent has the data to make that call without reconstructing it from raw invoices.
What your registered BAS or tax agent receives from us
- Monthly accounting-standards-basis financial statement package (P&L, balance sheet, cash flow statement) formatted for a board or investor update
- Deferred revenue schedule under AASB 15, tied line-by-line to each subscription contract's start date, term, and billing amount
- Convertible note and priced-round proceeds ledger entries reconciled to the signed deeds and the current share register
- Operating cash burn and accounting-standards net loss shown side by side, with a runway calculation at current burn
- R&D-eligible cost and time detail coded by project, staged for AusIndustry registration and the ATO R&D Tax Incentive schedule
- ASIC share register data — holders, classes, allotment dates, share counts — kept current and reconciled, ready for Form 484 lodgement by your registered agent or company officer
