Common Bookkeeping Mistakes

If you have chosen to do your own allocating in your Accounting file, here are a few very common transactions that people tend to get wrong.

If you are registered for GST, watch out for these:

• Insurance: Most insurances have a stamp duty component which is BAS Excluded/Out of Scope, so GST shouldn't apply to the whole transaction.

• Rego: As above, Regi has stamp duty, but to make it even more tricky, the Rego part is GST Free but the TAC charge (vic) has GST on it.

• Freight/Customs invoices: These can be interesting so you need to really have the source document and allocate the GST as it says on the bill. This will involve splitting the different components, and hint - sometimes you will need to have a minus line in there.

• Wages: Once you process your wages, an internal journal is done through the software, so don't allocate the actual payment to the employees directly to the wages expense account. This will only result in doubling up the expense and stuffing your Balance Sheet Liability account right up.

• Uncatagorised expense/income: Also known as "General" or "Miscellaneous" expenses - Just don't!!!