WHAT DOES ABN BAS OFFER? > BAS Agents

If you are a BAS Agent, you will enjoy the following benefits from ABN BAS:

Assists you to comply with the Code of Professional Conduct
Technical Helpline
Professional Indemnity Insurance
BAS Wizard Quality Assurance Framework
Quality Assurance Reviews
Knowledge, Technical Training and Awareness
Complimentary, Secure Back-Ups

1. Assists you to comply with the Code of Professional Conduct

The code of Professional Conduct places an onus on BAS Agents to ensure that the BAS Agent service they provide is to a competent standard, that they maintain their knowledge and skills, and that they take reasonable care to ensure that taxation laws are applied correctly to the circumstances relating to your client.

If you are confronted with issues that are new to you or unusual, relying on professional support from ABN BAS assist you to demonstrate that you have discharged this Code of Professional Conduct requirement.

2. Technical Helpline

Clients who engage BAS Agents are reliant on the services and advice that they receive. This imposes both responsibility and liability on the BAS Agent and with that, significant pressure to ensure that the advice provided is correct. ABN BAS relieves some of this pressure by providing BAS Agents with email-based helpline support from our qualified accountants. Whether it be some much-needed guidance on a complex GST or BAS matter, or simply a second perspective for peace-of-mind, the ABN BAS Helpline is an invaluable right-hand for BAS Agents.

3. Professional Indemnity Insurance

ABN has, since 2001, offered its members access to what we believe is the most comprehensive PI insurance product in the market for bookkeepers. Unlike some policies in the market, each  ABN policy owner enjoys individual cover. You are not grouped or under an umbrella limit with other bookkeepers. In simple terms, this means that the actions of other bookkeepers in the insurance pool in no way diminish the cover that applies to your policy. 

The ABN policy is feature rich and complies with all requirements of the Tax Practitioners Board. Click here to visit our PI Insurance page for more details.

4. BAS Wizard Quality Assurance Framework

BAS Wizard is a sophisticated Microsoft Excel spreadsheet that guides you step-by-step through the process of preparing Business Activity Statements for your clients. BAS Wizard has been the central pillar of certification services offered by ABN since 2001 under the old Section 251L “working under the direction” laws and has been developed further to cater for the new BAS Agent Laws. BAS Wizard complements all accounting software packages.

BAS Wizard is an invaluable tool for BAS Agents to make use of. It includes a range of reconciliations and proofs to verify the accuracy of your BAS, provides superb working papers by which to standardise the processes across your firm, and serves as a crucial audit trail of BASs that have been lodged. Through ABN BAS, BAS Agents will continue to receive the latest version of BAS Wizard as it is updated to reflect changes in laws.

5. Quality Assurance Reviews

As a BAS Agent, you are legally able to prepare and lodge BASs for your clients. However, for the following reasons, you may want ABN BAS’s qualified accountants and tax agents to conduct a Quality Assurance Review for you:

  • You may wish to receive an independent review of a BAS prepared by a new staff member;
  • You may wish to receive an independent review of BASs prepared by all staff members from time to time, for example annually;
  • The industry type that is the subject of the BAS may be of a kind you are unfamiliar with;
  • The BAS in question may contain one or more unusual or complex transactions.

Further information on ABN BAS’s Quality Assurance Reviews & BAS Lodgement, including pricing, can be found in the ABN Fact Sheet entitled Quality Assurance Reviews & BAS Lodgement.

6. Knowledge, Technical Training and Industry Awareness

Membership of ABN BAS is complimentary and automatic to all Australian Bookkeepers Network (ABN) members. This means, that as a BAS Agent, you will enjoy existing ABN services, many of which are highly geared for BAS Agents. These include:

  • newsletters to keep you abreast of industry changes;
  • technical papers on topics of relevance to bookkeepers;
  • training;
  • peer networking opportunities;
  • Pillars of Public Practice, containing an extensive range of short papers, practical tools and templates.

7. Complimentary, Secure Back-Ups

As a value-added service, all BAS Wizard files submitted to ABN BAS – whether they be for Limited or Detailed Quality Assurance Reviews – will be stored on our secure server for five years, free-of-charge. This provides you with the peace of mind of knowing that there will be a reliable and secure snapshot of the reports, reconciliations and figures that underpin your client’s Activity Statements.

This is a very useful service as you may be called on to defend the BAS you have been involved in some years after the event either with the Tax Office, your client or the client’s accountant. This secure off-site storage guards against your BAS being called into question by retrospective changes made to a client’s accounting file. It also guards against loss of your own workpapers and provides an independently stored set of workpapers and trail for BAS preparation that cannot be tampered with. You may request copies of any such back-ups simply by contacting ABN BAS.