EOFY Checklist for Australian Sole Traders
Most of EOFY prep for a sole trader is assembling and sorting records you already have. This is the order that usually works, and where the ATO cares more than it looks like it does.
1. Gather every bank and card statement for the year
Every business bank account, business credit card, and any personal account used for business spending at any point during the year. If you took payments through PayPal, Stripe or Square, those statements too. This is the record everything else in the return gets checked against, so gaps here cause problems later, not now.
Doing this by hand means downloading a PDF per statement period, opening each one, and manually transcribing rows into a spreadsheet. That's the point where transposed digits and dropped rows tend to creep in, especially past the third or fourth statement.
If it's PDFs, not a live feed
Our bank statement converter turns a stack of statement PDFs (CommBank, Westpac, NAB, ANZ, ING, UBank and others) into a CSV with the transactions already extracted. Useful for the accounts that were never connected to a live bank feed, or for a year you're reconstructing after the fact.
Try the converter →Download in order, July through June, so gaps are obvious immediately rather than surfacing as a reconciliation mismatch weeks later. Keep a copy somewhere other than your own device, since a lost laptop shouldn't mean redownloading a year of statements from six different logins.
2. Sort transactions into expense categories
With everything in one place, the next job is categorising it: which expenses are deductible, which aren't, and which need splitting between business and personal use.
Usually deductible
- Office supplies and stationery
- Software subscriptions
- Phone and internet, business-use portion
- Marketing and advertising
- Professional development
- Home office running costs
- Vehicle expenses, business-use portion
- Insurance premiums, accounting fees, bank fees
Usually not deductible
- Personal groceries
- Meals and entertainment, in most cases
- Personal-use vehicle costs
- Gym memberships
- Home renovations outside an office area
- Ordinary clothing (unless protective or uniform)
- Fines and penalties
The mixed-use expenses are where most correction happens later. A phone or vehicle used for both business and personal purposes only supports a deduction for the business-use portion, and the ATO expects that split to be reasoned, not assumed at 100%. A logbook or a documented estimate is what supports the claim if it's ever questioned.
A CSV with date, description and amount columns makes this pass much faster than working from PDFs directly. Sort by description, batch-categorise anything recognisable, and leave anything genuinely unclear flagged for your accountant rather than guessed at.
3. Total your income, including the parts that don't come as invoices
Every dollar the business received during the year gets reported, not just what shows up as an invoice paid on time. That includes cash payments, income through PayPal, Stripe or a storefront platform, interest earned on a business account, and the market value of anything received through bartering.
The ATO cross-checks reported income against data from banks, payment processors and the deductions other businesses claim for paying you. A return that's missing income a client already claimed as an expense against you is one of the more common ways a mismatch gets flagged.
If you invoice through accounting software, exporting a Profit & Loss report for the financial year is usually the fastest way to get a checked total rather than re-adding deposits by hand.
The rest of the list
Receipts and invoices
Above the ATO's low-value threshold, a tax invoice is required as proof of an expense, and a bank statement line alone isn't enough. Below it, the statement usually is. Digital copies are fine; nothing needs to be kept on paper.
Home office deduction
There's a fixed cents-per-hour method and an actual-cost method based on a percentage of home running costs. The fixed rate is simpler to calculate; actual cost is sometimes worth more depending on your setup. The ATO publishes the current fixed rate each year.
GST reconciliation
If you're GST-registered, your quarterly BAS figures should sum to your annual total. A mismatch between what was reported quarterly and what the full-year numbers show is a common trigger for an ATO review.
Superannuation contributions
Voluntary personal super contributions can be deductible, but only if you lodge a notice of intent with your super fund before you lodge your tax return. Do this out of order and the deduction doesn't apply.
Asset purchases
Equipment and asset purchases under the ATO's current instant asset write-off threshold can often be deducted immediately rather than depreciated over years. The threshold and eligibility rules change from year to year, so check the current figure before assuming last year's applies.
Handover to your accountant
A categorised CSV, a receipts folder, an income summary and last year's return, handed over together, is a materially different job for an accountant than a folder of uncategorised PDFs, and usually a faster, cheaper one.
Where sole traders most often trip up
- One account for everything. Mixing personal and business spending in the same account makes every categorisation pass slower and every mixed-use claim harder to substantiate. A separate business account fixes this going forward, though it doesn't help with the year already behind you.
- Relying on memory instead of records. A $350 charge from four months ago is not something most people can accurately explain from memory alone at tax time. The ATO requires substantiation, not recollection.
- Guessing at the business-use split on a vehicle. A logbook showing business versus personal use is what actually supports a vehicle claim. An estimated percentage with nothing behind it is one of the more heavily scrutinised claim types.
- Notifying the super fund after lodging. The notice of intent has to happen before the return is lodged, not after. There's no way to claim the deduction retroactively once that order is missed.
- Leaving all of it until June. None of the above is complicated in isolation. It's the volume arriving all at once in the last week of the financial year that turns it into a genuine problem.
Statements in PDF, not a spreadsheet?
Convert a year of statement PDFs into a categorised CSV before any of the sorting above starts. Works with CommBank, Westpac, NAB, ANZ, ING, UBank and other major Australian banks.
Frequently asked questions
When is the tax return deadline for sole traders?
31 October if you lodge it yourself. Later if a registered tax agent lodges for you, though agents typically set their own earlier cut-off for taking on clients each year. Confirm the current year's dates on the ATO website.
Do I need a receipt for every expense?
Below the ATO's low-value threshold, a bank or card statement showing the transaction is usually accepted in place of a receipt. Above it, a tax invoice is required. Check the current threshold rather than an old figure.
How long do I need to keep records?
Generally five years from the date you lodge the return the records relate to. Bank statements, receipts and invoices all count, and digital copies are fine.
Can I claim coffee meetings or client lunches?
Generally no. Meals and entertainment are treated as non-deductible for sole traders in most circumstances, with some narrow exceptions such as meals while travelling for work. Check with a tax agent if a specific case seems borderline.