What is financial reporting with CapEasy?
Bookkeeping records what happened. Reporting explains it. We prepare monthly, quarterly and year-end reporting packs to a consistent shape, so comparing one period against another actually tells you something.
In Australia, management reporting and year-end financial statements answer a different set of questions than the BAS does. The BAS is about GST and PAYG withholding on a quarterly or monthly cycle. Financial statements — profit and loss, balance sheet, and the notes behind them, prepared to Australian Accounting Standards — are about whether the business is actually solvent and profitable, and they're what your accountant needs to prepare the entity's income tax return and, for a company, the financial report that sits behind the annual ASIC review.
Most small Australian businesses only see a proper set of financial statements once a year, produced under time pressure in the run-up to the accountant's tax deadline. That means twelve months of coding decisions, GST treatment questions, and reconciliation gaps all surface at once, and the accountant spends billable time untangling the year instead of reviewing it. We build the close monthly instead: bank feeds reconciled, the P&L and balance sheet current, so at 30 June the accountant is reviewing a clean year, not reconstructing one.
The services inside financial reporting
4 services, each with its own page — scope, process and the licence line stated before you buy anything.
| Management accounts | A monthly P&L, balance sheet and cash view you can actually read. |
| Year-end preparation | The file your accountant needs, finished, so their work starts where it should. |
| Board and investor reporting | The pack, on the same shape every period, with the numbers tied to the ledger. |
| Budget vs actual reporting | Variance you can explain, not a spreadsheet nobody opens. |
Why it matters
| Without a system | With CapEasy |
|---|---|
| Performance problems surface a quarter late | A pack that lands on the same day each month |
| Board and investor reporting becomes a scramble before each meeting | Variance against budget, explained in a written note |
| Cash runway is an estimate rather than a number | Board-ready reporting produced from the close you were already doing |
What we need from you
From the close
- Reconciled general ledger
- Trial balance
- AR and AP aging
- Inventory reports if applicable
For comparison
- Budget and forecast data
- Prior period statements
- Segment or entity structure
How it runs, step by step
- Monthly
- Profit & loss
- Balance sheet
- Cash flow statement
- Quarterly
- Consolidated statements
- Quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year comparison
- Cash flow trend analysis
- Year-end
- Year-end statement preparation
- Supporting schedules
- Fixed asset reconciliation
- Management reporting
- Break-even analysis
- Profitability by product or service
- Working capital analysis
What lands with you, every cycle
- Monthly reporting pack
- Quarterly board pack
- Year-end statement package
- Supporting schedules
- A written summary of what moved and why
Who does what
Management and statutory reporting prepared for your accountant to review and sign. Here is the licence line in Australia, stated before you buy anything — each of these is carried out by your registered BAS or tax agent:
- Work out what goes on your BAS, or advise you on it — under TASA 2009 that requires registration we do not hold.
- Lodge anything with the ATO, or deal with the ATO on your behalf.
- Determine your GST treatment, or calculate your superannuation guarantee.
- Report Single Touch Payroll as your agent.
- Give advice a registered tax agent is required to give.
Financial reporting in Australia
What a BAS service actually covers — TASA 2009 s.90-10
TASA 2009 s.90-10 defines a BAS service as ascertaining or advising on liabilities, obligations, or entitlements under a BAS provision — not just lodging the form. Working out a GST or PAYG figure and handing it across the table is already registered work, even if the client presses submit themselves; framing that as a shortcut around registration doesn't hold up. We stay clear of that line entirely — we reconcile and code the transactions; your registered BAS or tax agent determines what goes on the BAS and lodges it.
Financial statements to Australian Accounting Standards
Financial statements prepared for an Australian entity should follow Australian Accounting Standards — consistent treatment of revenue, expenses, and asset classification, applied the same way month to month so a comparison between March and September actually means something. This is preparation, not a lodgment or an attest opinion, and it feeds two downstream users: your accountant, who uses it for the income tax return, and, for a company, the ASIC annual review.
ASIC's annual company review
A registered company has an annual review from ASIC — confirmation of company details and payment of the annual review fee — that runs on its own cycle tied to the company's registration date, separate from the ATO's income tax and BAS calendars. It is a corporate filing, not a tax lodgment, so it sits outside TASA's BAS-agent and tax-agent registration requirements. Current financial statements make it a non-event rather than a scramble.
Single Touch Payroll reconciliation
STP reports payroll — wages, PAYG withholding, and superannuation — to the ATO each pay run, and finalisation at year end confirms those figures for employees' income statements. That STP data needs to tie back to the payroll expense and super liability lines in the financial statements, or a reviewer is left explaining a mismatch between what the ATO has on file and what the ledger says. Reporting STP as your agent is a service reserved to a registered agent; we reconcile the numbers that feed it.
What your registered BAS or tax agent receives from us
- A reconciled monthly profit and loss and balance sheet, coded consistently to Australian Accounting Standards
- Bank and credit-card reconciliations tied to zero variance for the period
- GST-coded transaction detail — sales and purchases classified by GST treatment as they were entered, ready for your BAS agent to review and determine the lodgment position
- A payroll summary reconciled against the STP figures reported for the period, flagging any variance before finalisation
- AP and AR ageing schedules matched to source invoices and bills
- A year-end financial statement pack: full-year P&L, balance sheet, and notes, ready for your accountant's income tax return preparation
Questions worth asking before you start
Will you deal with the Australian Taxation Office on my behalf?
No. We are a consulting firm — lodgments and agent work run through registered BAS and tax agents. Anything that means dealing directly with ATO — filing, correspondence, representation — stays with your registered BAS or tax agent. What changes is how much work it is for them: they open a file that is already reconciled and coded, not one they have to rebuild first.
Exactly what lands with your registered BAS or tax agent at the end of a cycle?
Monthly reporting pack, Quarterly board pack, Year-end statement package, Supporting schedules, A written summary of what moved and why. All of it goes to your registered BAS or tax agent — or straight to you, if you are the one reviewing before it moves on.
Who actually does the work — a person or an AI tool?
A named person on our team owns your file and reviews everything that leaves it. Software does a real share of the grinding underneath it — coding, matching, flagging the obvious gaps — but nothing regulated happens without a person’s judgement, and nothing here is signed or filed by an algorithm.
Can you produce reports before our bookkeeping is clean?
Only from a closed set of books — reporting is only as good as the ledger underneath it. If bookkeeping is not already clean, we usually start there, or run both from month one.
Who signs off the numbers before they reach my board or investors?
You do, always. We prepare the pack and flag anything we think needs your attention before it goes out; the sign-off and the story you tell with it stay yours.
Can you match reporting to a template we already use?
Yes — send the last few packs you produced and we build to that shape rather than a generic one, so the switch is invisible to whoever reads it.
Can you prepare and lodge our BAS?
No. We reconcile and GST-code the transactions that feed the BAS, but under TASA 2009 s.90-10 even advising on what goes on it is a registered service. That stays with your registered BAS or tax agent, who ascertains the figures and lodges it.
If you're not a BAS agent, what does your reporting actually give my agent?
A reconciled ledger with sales and purchases already coded by GST treatment, bank and payroll figures tied out, and a clean set of financial statements — so your BAS or tax agent is reviewing organised numbers, not building them from raw transaction data.
Do you prepare our income tax return?
No. We prepare the financial statements your accountant uses to build the return. Preparing and lodging the return itself is your accountant's or registered tax agent's work.
How does financial reporting connect to Single Touch Payroll?
We reconcile the wages, PAYG withholding, and super figures in the ledger against what's reported through STP each pay cycle, so the numbers agree before year-end finalisation. Reporting STP as your agent is reserved to a registered agent; we reconcile the numbers behind it.
What is the ASIC annual review, and is that something you handle?
It's a corporate compliance obligation — confirming your company's registered details and paying the annual review fee — separate from any ATO lodgment, so it falls outside TASA's agent registration requirements. We keep your financial statements current so the review reflects an accurate financial position; the review itself is a company obligation, not something a tax or BAS registration covers or restricts us from supporting on the reporting side.
Will you calculate our superannuation guarantee liability?
No. Determining the super guarantee is registered tax agent work. We reconcile the super figures already reflected in payroll against the ledger and flag the quarterly due dates, but the calculation and lodgment sit with your registered agent.
Do you use AI in preparing our reports?
AI handles the repetitive work — matching bank transactions, suggesting GST coding, flagging exceptions for review. Every figure that lands in your financial statements is checked by a named accountant who is accountable for the reporting; AI doesn't code a transaction or finalise a report unsupervised.
What accounting standards do you prepare our statements to?
Australian Accounting Standards, applied consistently period to period, so a comparison between any two months in the year is comparing the same methodology, not two different ones.
We only need statements once a year for tax time. Why would we want monthly reporting?
A once-a-year close means twelve months of GST coding, reconciliation gaps, and payroll variances all surface at the same time your accountant is under deadline pressure. Monthly reporting catches each of those in the month it happened, so 30 June is a formality instead of a scramble.
Can you tell us whether an expense is deductible?
No. That's tax advice, and it sits with your registered tax agent or accountant. We code and reconcile the transaction accurately in the ledger; the deductibility determination is theirs to make.
What happens to a prior-period error you find during a close?
We flag it in the variance note, document the correction, and raise it with you and your accountant or BAS agent before anything is reclassified, so a change never happens silently between periods.
