Every bookkeeper dies a little inside when we see someone type, “Doing a GST return is easy - I just push a button in Xero” on social media chats
We wish 😊
Yes, Xero is a brilliant tool, and yes, there is technically a button. But before anyone presses it, there’s a whole lot of checking, fixing, questioning, sighing, and occasionally muttering at the screen.
A proper GST return means making sure the bank accounts are reconciled, transactions are coded correctly, invoices and bills are entered properly, GST has been treated the right way, private expenses are adjusted, and those mysterious “what on earth is this?” transactions are investigated.
And then there’s the fun part, reconciling the GST return back to the balance sheet to make sure everything actually lines up. Because Xero will calculate based on what’s in there, but it won’t tap you on the shoulder and say, “Are you sure that motorbike, coffee machine and trip to Fiji were all business expenses?”
So yes, there’s a button. But good bookkeeping is everything that happens before the button gets pushed.
