Processing ATO General Interest Charges and Lodgement Penalties in Hosted

HiT

How do I process ATO General Interest Charges and Lodgement Penalties?  Do I create an Expense account for these charges?

Charley

Piece of cake, have this all the time. Create Expense "Interest & Penalties". The best way to do the liability account is to create an "ATO Running Balance" liability account. GST Payable and PAYG Payable should be sub accounts of this. Then the journal is Debit Interest & Penalties and credit ATO Running Balance. That way your ATO Running Balance account with GST & PAYG should reconcile with your Integrated Client account.

If you want me to run you through it call me 0266834083

Sally McIntosh, Accredited Consultant

Hi HiT,

Alternatively I create bills for all my transactions to the ATO, i.e. BAS and IAS. Then with the interest charges all I have to do is create a bill for the interest & penalties (adding a new account as mentioned by Charles)

So when you go to pay bills they are sitting there to be paid.

Kind regards,

Sally McIntosh (sally@samsolutions.com.au)

Charley

Sally, are you then reconciling your GST & PAYG back to the liability accounts. I use a BAS Suspense (bank) account. When I pay the PAYG Liability it comes from the BAS Suspense and then the GST liability is a journal at the end of qtr (or period)

GST payable            123.25 Debit                            GST due on sales

GST Payable                                  50.00 Credit        GST reclaimed from purchase

BAS Suspense                                73.00                   BAS Suspense

Rounding                                            00.25                 Rounding

With the PAYG and GST in the BAS Suspense it will then equal your BAS, so when you "Pay Tax" you just pay it to the BAS Suspense. If you do the journals and PAYG Liability at the end of the quarter then the PAYG liability account will reconcile back to zero and the GST Liability account will do the same if you are on accruals for tax, if however you are on cash then it will need to reconcile back to the difference between A/R GST and A/P GST.

Sally McIntosh, Accredited Consultant

Hi Charles,

No I just enter a bill pointing to all the necessary accounts and date it at the end of the quarter. Then mark it as paid the date I actually pay it.

That way it will be cleared out without having to explain journal entries to my clients.

Another possibility is to set up the Integrated Account as an AP account and allocate the bills there so it is completely separate in the Balance Sheet.

Sally

Dee Papworth

Hope it is okay to tag on a question, can you allocate the fine to the ATO ICA?