Payroll
A short end-of-year checklist for small teams
The end of the financial year doesn't need to be a scramble. If your books have been kept tidy, June is a short checklist rather than a rescue mission. Here's the order we work through with our clients — the steps that keep your accountant happy and your year-end fast.
1. Reconcile everything to 30 June
Before anything else, every bank account, credit card, loan and clearing account should be reconciled to 30 June. Your accountant's first question is always whether the bank balances match the statements — if they do, everything downstream gets faster and cheaper.
2. Finalise Single Touch Payroll
Once your last pay run for the year is done, you need to make an STP finalisation declaration through your payroll software. This tells the ATO your payroll data for the year is complete and final, and it's what makes your employees' income statements 'tax ready' in myGov.
The general deadline for finalising STP is 14 July. Before you declare, check that year-to-date wages, tax and super in your software agree with your payroll reports — fixing figures after finalisation is possible but fiddly.
3. Check super is paid and reported
Confirm all super guarantee contributions for the year have been paid and received by the funds — not just processed in your software. June quarter super is due by 28 July, but paying it before 30 June means you can generally claim the deduction in the year just ended. Leave enough lead time for the clearing house to process it.
4. Tidy the loose ends
A short pass over the usual suspects makes a real difference at year-end:
- Chase outstanding customer invoices and decide what, if anything, needs writing off.
- Record supplier bills dated on or before 30 June, even if you'll pay them in July.
- Do a stocktake if you carry inventory, and record the value at 30 June.
- Separate private and business portions of mixed expenses like vehicles and home office.
- Check asset purchases are coded as assets, not expenses, so depreciation can be claimed correctly.
5. Lodge the last BAS and hand over clean
With the June quarter BAS lodged and payroll finalised, your books are ready for your accountant. A clean handover — reconciled bank, finalised payroll, receipts attached — is what turns year-end from a drawn-out Q&A into a quick review.
If this list feels like a lot to fit into July, we run this checklist for our clients every year. A conversation now means a calm June.
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