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Lodging Your Quarterly BAS

Most allied-health practices lodge a Business Activity Statement (BAS) every quarter. Praxi rolls up the figures the ATO asks for so you can either lodge them yourself via the ATO Business Portal or hand them straight to your accountant.

This page walks through the full quarter-end flow. For the underlying GST report fields and how Praxi maps them to ATO BAS labels (G1, G3, 1A, 1B…), see Billing Reports → GST Report.

Before you start the quarter​

Two things should be set correctly before the period closes — fix them mid-quarter rather than at lodgement time:

  1. Practice ABN and tax settings in Settings → Organisation → Tax. Your ABN, GST registration status, and reporting frequency live here. If GST is registered, every invoice line is tagged GST-free or taxable based on its service type.
  2. Service type tax treatment. Allied-health consultations are GST-free under section 38-10 of the A New Tax System (Goods and Services Tax) Act 1999. Praxi defaults consultations to GST-free and products / reports / medico-legal work to taxable. Check Settings → Service Types if anything looks wrong — switching it later forces you to amend invoices.

Reconcile the quarter​

Before generating the BAS, finish reconciliation so the numbers match what actually landed in your bank account:

  1. Reports → Reconciliation — match payments against invoices and bank transfers for the quarter.
  2. Resolve any unmatched payments before continuing. The GST report excludes unreconciled or void invoices but counts everything else, so a duplicate invoice will inflate G1.
  3. Check your aged-receivables report. Outstanding invoices are still counted for accruals reporting (the default for most practices). If you lodge on a cash basis, only paid invoices count — set the basis in Settings → Organisation → Tax to match.

Generate the BAS export​

  1. Go to Billing → Tax Reports.
  2. Select Quarterly and the quarter you're lodging (e.g. Jan–Mar).
  3. Review the on-screen report. Praxi produces a line-by-line breakdown of total sales, GST-free sales (the bulk of a psychology practice's revenue), purchases, GST on sales, and GST on purchases.
  4. The PAYG Withholding and Fuel Tax Credit labels are not populated by Praxi — your bookkeeper or accounting software handles those.
  5. Copy the figures for your accountant or lodgement. When entering GST-free healthcare sales into the ATO form, confirm the correct G-label with your accountant (a PDF export from this screen is on the way but not yet available).

Submit to the ATO​

You have three options once you have the export:

  • Self-lodge via the ATO Business Portal — sign in, paste the figures into the BAS form, submit. The portal returns a confirmation receipt; save the receipt number against the quarter in your records.
  • Hand the export to your accountant — they lodge through their tax-agent software. They will return an ATO-issued receipt number once it's processed.
  • Connect a third-party accounting tool (Xero, MYOB) — use the PDF export as the source document and enter the figures into your accounting software manually; lodge from there.

Praxi does not lodge BAS directly with the ATO. The export is the handoff point.

After lodgement​

  • Record the ATO confirmation number against the quarter in your own records — this is for your own audit trail, not a regulatory requirement.
  • Pay the net GST amount by the due date — the 28th of the month following the quarter end (or the next business day). Late payment incurs ATO general interest charge.
  • Keep the CSV / PDF for five years. The ATO can ask for source records under s262A of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1936.

Common adjustments​

SituationWhat to do
Invoice voided after lodgementIssue a credit note in the next quarter; do not amend the lodged BAS.
GST-coding error on an invoiceAmend the invoice if discovered before quarter close; otherwise raise a credit note + corrected invoice in the next period.
Switched accrual ↔ cash mid-yearLodge a revision through the ATO portal; talk to your accountant first.

If your turnover crosses $20 million annual GST turnover you switch to monthly BAS — Praxi's BAS Export supports both frequencies, but the ATO must be notified separately.