June 2024
Accountant's Content (Content Update 286)
Starters:
2024 Accounts and Tax Workpapers (stand-alone and connected)
2024 Personal ITR Workpapers
2024 SMSF Compliance Workpapers (stand-alone and connected)
2024 Trust Workpapers
All starters have been updated with:
- Period start and end dates on the Home sheet
- Tax rates for the 2024 year
- 2024 Checklists
- ATO hyperlinks
Note: The Trust starter will be deactivated after this financial year, as all relevant worksheets and workflow have been incorporated into the Accounts and Tax starter.
Trust starter (incorporated into the Accounts and Tax starter)
Introducing a new way to handle your Trust jobs. From basic distributions through to complex streaming, our new and improved worksheets have you covered. No longer get distracted by company-centric worksheets and workflows. Our updates include:
- A Trust specific C20 Tax Reconciliation
- NEW C16 and C18 Distribution (no streaming) worksheets for Discretionary and Fixed Trusts, that flow through to an improved "
- TD05 Beneficiary Accounts worksheet that prepopulates with distributions and rolls closing balances to the next year
- NEW TTR Tax Return Template that summarises all your data into the appropriate tax return labels (applicable only for 2024 onwards).
Worried about applying carried forward losses? The following worksheets are here to assist:
- TD06 50 Percent Stake Test
- TD07 Pattern of Distributions
- TD08 Income Injection Test
- As well as keep track of related family members and entities with the TD10 Test Individual worksheet.
Note: The TD09 Recoupment of Losses worksheet has been deactivated. You are now able to use the C15 Losses worksheet instead.
Unlucky enough to have to apply some streaming to the Trust Income? We have collated the necessary worksheets into their own Trusts with Streaming section in the General tab of the Index.
- TDSS Trust Step by Step Instructions
- TDS Trust Distributions Summary (which also flows through to TD05)
- TD01 Capital Gains Allocation
- TD02 Franked Distributions Allocation
- TD03 Adjusted Section 97 Assessable Income
Worksheets:
Along with the expected updates to 2024 dates and rates, we are releasing not one, not two, but three new worksheets:
NEW D05A Work from Home Deduction (for Individual starters)
Designed to simplify the tracking and management of expenses incurred while working remotely. This comprehensive tool allows you to easily record and categorise various work-from-home expenses such as internet, utilities, office supplies, and more. The worksheet includes automated calculations for total expenses and provides insights into deductible amounts, ensuring accurate and efficient documentation.
NEW K20 QBCC Minimum Financial Requirement
Our new QBCC (Queensland Building and Construction Commission) worksheet is specifically designed to assist with calculating and tracking Net Tangible Assets and other essential financial metrics required by the QBCC. Additionally, it incorporates critical calculations to help manage maximum allowable revenue based on the financial sustainability requirements set by the QBCC. This new worksheet aims to streamline financial reporting and enhance the management of your building business's financial health.
NEW G29 Accumulated Property Cost Base and CGT
We are pleased to introduce our new Accumulated Property Cost Base and CGT worksheet, designed to streamline the tracking of initial purchase expenses and ongoing holding costs. This innovative tool allows you to roll forward costs year by year, ensuring comprehensive and accurate records are maintained effortlessly. When it comes time to sell, this worksheet simplifies the calculation of Capital Gains Tax by providing a detailed summary of all relevant expenses. This enhancement aims to make property financial management more efficient and stress-free, giving you peace of mind during the selling process.
But why stop there, we have also been busy improving some of your most used sheets, with some major upgrades to improve usability and increase efficiency, including the long awaited…
H11 Chattel Mortgage Schedule and H13 Hire Purchase Schedule
We are proud to announce a significant update to our loan repayment worksheets, now accommodating annual repayments to provide flexibility in managing loan obligations, as well as the ability to deal with irregular and off-off payments. Additionally, we've introduced a new feature that simplifies loan balance reconciliation by enabling you to view total loan balances in a consolidated manner, adding to the traditional split between current and non-current amounts.
M25 Rental Property and M26 Rental Property Summary
The new design simplifies your workflow by consolidating all data for a single property into one comprehensive sheet, replacing the previous three properties per sheet system. The summary worksheet now effectively collates information from all your properties, providing a clear and concise overview. We've streamlined the interface by removing unnecessary monthly clutter and added a tax summary feature to facilitate easy transposing into your tax return. These improvements aim to enhance usability and efficiency in managing your rental properties.
Note: Data will not roll over from the old version to the upgraded version, due to the move from three properties to one per sheet. On occasion we have to make the difficult decision to improve a sheet at the cost of losing fixed data. Please copy your property information into the new worksheet and you can rest assured your data will roll forward seamlessly in the future.
F30 Prepayments
We have now introduced the capability to separate tax and accounting concepts as required, ensuring greater clarity and precision, while still reconciling to your Ledger. The layout has been revamped for a more user-friendly experience, making it easier to navigate and utilise. Additionally, we have integrated the Small Business Entity section into the main worksheet for streamlined access. You can now easily track movements with clear opening and closing balances, enhancing the overall functionality and efficiency of the worksheet.
G05 Borrowing Costs
This enhanced version now accommodates up to 20 loans, providing a robust solution for managing multiple borrowing costs. Additionally, the improved rollover feature allows you to keep track of individual loans efficiently while ensuring that the overall expense and asset are balanced accurately to the ledger. These improvements offer a more comprehensive and user-friendly experience, making the management of your borrowing costs more straightforward and precise.
G15 Blackhole Expenditure (previously G15 Intangibles)
Due to changes in the write-off rules around formation costs, we have converted our Intangibles worksheet to purely deal with blackhole expenditure, providing a more focused and efficient tool for managing these specific capital expenses. This updated version now accommodates up to 20 expense items, ensuring comprehensive tracking and reporting. The worksheet also features our new design, improving usability and readability.
N56 Payroll Tax
The Payroll Tax worksheet has been updated for 2024. This release includes the latest rates and thresholds for all Australian states and territories including calculation of the Mental Health and Wellbeing surcharge and the COVID-19 debt temporary surcharge for Victorian employers. Insert the updated worksheet, select your state, and enter your payroll information. The worksheet will handle the calculations, ensuring you use the correct rates and comply with the latest regulations.
Partnerships
Alongside our improvements to the Trust worksheets, we have added additional worksheets to improve the experience when working on a Partnership:
- C17 Partnership Distributions
- PTR Partnership Tax Return
- A Partnership specific C20 Tax Reconciliation worksheet
B01 Individual Tax Summary (for Individual starters)
The Individual Summary now prominently displays both taxable income and estimated tax payable before adjustments. Looking ahead, we're working on expanding this functionality to include tax calculations for various individual types. Along with incorporating our ITR sheets with the Individual ATO pre-fill. Stay tuned for these future developments, as we continue to refine our tools.
Knowledge Documents
All knowledge documents listed below have had formatting, links and document profiles updated where relevant. In addition, all equivalent merge templates have also been updated.
- Accounts & Tax - Year End Questionnaire 2024
- Accounts and Tax Procedure - How We Do It Here
- Personal ITR - Year End Questionnaire 2024
- Personal ITR Procedure
- Primary Production - Year End Questionnaire 2024
- SMSF - Year End Questionnaire 2024
- SMSF - Year End Compliance Procedure
- Financial Statement Analysis workpapers
May 2024
NEW Worksheet:
C35 Professional Firms Profit Allocation
We have listened to your feedback and we're happy to announce a new worksheet designed to streamline risk assessment for professional firms. This worksheet directly addresses profit allocation practices in accordance with the ATO's PCG 2021/4 guidelines. The worksheet guides you through the three key risk assessment factors outlined in the PCG, ultimately determining your firm's relevant risk zone. This newfound clarity empowers you to make informed decisions regarding profit distribution, ensuring compliance and minimising potential risks.
Improvements and Bug Fixes:
G31 Division 7A
Streamlining your Division 7A calculations just got easier! We've revamped our Division 7A worksheet to mirror the Australian Taxation Office's (ATO) own calculator, creating a more intuitive and user-friendly experience. This alignment ensures consistency and clarity when determining your Division 7A obligations. To further enhance your workflow, we've implemented a sleek new design and consolidated all loan details into a single location. These improvements empower you to confidently navigate Division 7A calculations with greater efficiency and accuracy.
FB10 Car Fringe Benefits
We're pleased to announce that our Car Fringe Benefits worksheet, now incorporates support for Electric Vehicles (EVs). This update reflects where eligible EVs are exempt from FBT, but still need to be declared as reportable fringe benefits. Our enhanced worksheet seamlessly handles both scenarios, ensuring accurate calculations and streamlined reporting for companies offering EVs as part of their employee benefits package. Stay compliant and confident in your FBT calculations.
N80 Wages
We've just released an update to our Wages worksheet that includes a helpful new feature. Now, the workpaper will automatically warn you if your total payroll exceeds the minimum threshold (for the lowest state) for registering for payroll tax. This will help you stay on top of your tax obligations and avoid any potential penalties.
M03 Capital Gains
Our popular Capital Gains worksheet is now the go to for all entity types. Because of this we have added a new owner split area to easily keep track of assets with multiple owners.
H35 Provisions Tax
We fixed a bug in which the Income Tax Expense from the C20 Tax Reconciliation worksheet was coming in as a negative.
April 2024
Accountant's Content (Content Update 283)
2024 Interim Accounts & Tax Workpapers
Need to complete 2024 Interims or even get started on some 2025 jobs? Good news - our 2024 Interim Accounts & Tax Workpapers have been released. The main updates include:
- Tax Rates – Updated tax rates for 2024 year.
- H39 Provisions - Long Service Leave - Updated superannuation rate for 2025.
- H40 Provisions - Annual Leave - Updated superannuation rate for 2025.
- M35 Sales Trading Account - Updated for 2024 private use rates.
Please keep in mind that any 2024 tax rate or legislation changes between now and the end of the financial year will be reflected in our Accounts & Tax release at the end of June, along with other design updates and improvements.
March 2024
PLEASE NOTE:
The Treasury Laws Amendment (Cost of Living - Medicare Levy) Bill 2024 (Stage 3 Tax Cuts) passed both Houses on 27 February 2024 and received Royal Assent on 5 March 2024. This resulted in the Medicare levy low-income threshold for the 2023-2024 income year increasing from $24,276 to $26,000 and the Phase out threshold increasing from $30,345 to $32,500. Our Tax Planning Workpapers were updated to reflect these changes.
Accountant's Content (Content Update 282)
2024 Fringe Benefits Tax Workpapers
We are excited to announce the release of the latest version of our FBT Workpapers, now with a refreshed design and enhanced functionality to streamline your fringe benefits tax calculations and reporting. With a focus on user experience and efficiency, this update also introduces a new worksheet specialised in managing multiple cars to optimise your tax reporting processes.
The FB20 Multi-Cars Fringe Benefits worksheet is specifically designed to accommodate the complexities of calculating FBT for multiple vehicles. This enhancement not only simplifies data entry and calculations but also enriches the reporting capabilities, ensuring a more efficient and comprehensive tax reporting process for businesses managing vehicle fleets.
Improvements:
N75 Superannuation
We're pleased to announce an enhancement to our payroll functionality: the addition of a new section dedicated to the reconciliation of multiple superannuation accounts with the overall payroll balance. This update ensures that the super expense aligns seamlessly with payroll calculations.
January 2024
Accountant's Content (Content Update 281)
2024 Tax Planning Workpapers
The latest update to our Tax Planning starter enhances the user experience with a redesigned, more intuitive interface, including easier navigation between worksheets. This update also introduces the ability to compare current and previous period tax data. These improvements, along with our core offerings of optimising tax position strategies and techniques for minimising tax liabilities, solidify Smart Workpapers as a comprehensive and user-friendly solution for efficient tax planning and management.
Updates include:
- Updated for current Business Fitness design
- Updated for 2024 tax rates and correct ATO references and hyperlinks
- TP19 Losses – amended for 2024 onwards to remove loss carry-back calculations
Improvements and Bug Fixes:
F05 Trade Debtors and H05 Trade Creditors
The latest update introduces a streamlined design overhaul for both the Trade Creditors and Trade Debtors worksheets, enhancing the user experience with a more user-friendly interface. This update also includes new graphical sections, which provide visual representation of financial data to aid you in your analytical work. Additionally, "Analytical Insights" have been integrated into both analysis sections, offering deeper, actionable insights into financial standings.
We are excited to release the revamped Provision for Doubtful Debts section, featuring a "Debtors at risk" table that highlights the top 10 'at risk' debtors based on customisable sensitivity settings. These design and feature updates not only enhance the visual and functional aspects of the templates but also incorporate advanced analytics features, significantly improving insights and efficiency in managing monthly workpapers.
N75 Superannuation
Our latest release features a redesigned superannuation template, aimed at improving user navigation and efficiency. Alongside the aesthetic enhancements, we've corrected a previously encountered bug where late payment warnings were not appearing as intended. This update ensures a smoother experience and better compliance with superannuation payment deadlines.
J50 BAS Lodgements
In line with our recent updates across various templates, the BAS Lodgements sheet has also undergone a redesign to ensure consistency and enhance user experience. The sheet also introduces a new feature: a deferred GST column. This addition is designed to provide users with more flexibility and accuracy in managing GST obligations, particularly for those dealing with imported goods and opting for deferred GST schemes.
Knowledge Documents
All knowledge documents listed below have had formatting, links and document profiles updated where relevant. In addition, all equivalent merge templates have also been updated. Document changes noted below where additional changes have been made:
Tax Planning - Client Newsletter 2024 - updated all rates and information relevant for clients for the 2024 year.
Tax Planning Procedure – updated for 2024 year and updated applicable hyperlinks.