Overview
Tax Returns helps you prepare your annual Australian tax return directly from your Beeswax accounting data. The system automatically pulls figures from your Profit & Loss, Balance Sheet, BAS statements, and payroll records, then maps them to the correct ATO form fields.
Beeswax supports two return types:
| Return Type | ATO Form | Who It's For |
|---|---|---|
| Sole Trader | Individual Tax Return + Business Schedule | Sole traders and self-employed individuals |
| Company | Company Tax Return (Form 28) | Pty Ltd companies and other incorporated entities |
Your business structure is set in your account's financial settings and determines which return type is generated.
Getting Started
Preflight Check
Before creating a tax return, Beeswax runs a preflight check to make sure your books are in order. The check looks for:
| Check | Description |
|---|---|
| BAS Periods Locked | All BAS periods for the financial year should be lodged and locked |
| Bank Reconciliation | Bank accounts should be reconciled for the full year |
| Unallocated Transactions | Flags any bank transactions that haven't been allocated |
| Missing Tax Codes | Identifies transactions without a tax code assigned |
| Unmapped Accounts | Chart of account categories that haven't been mapped to ATO form fields |
Issues are classified as blockers (must fix before proceeding) or warnings (can proceed but should review).
Creating a Return
- Navigate to Accounting > Tax Returns
- Click New Tax Return
- Select the financial year (e.g. FY2025 = 1 July 2024 to 30 June 2025)
- Review the preflight check results
- Click Create to generate the return
Beeswax will automatically populate the return with data from your accounts.
How Data Is Populated
When you create a tax return, Beeswax aggregates data from several sources:
| Source | What It Provides | Reporting Basis Used |
|---|---|---|
| Profit & Loss | Income and expense totals grouped by account category | Income Tax Reporting Basis |
| Balance Sheet | Asset, liability, and equity balances (company returns) | Accrual |
| BAS / Tax Codes | GST collected and paid totals from tax-coded transactions | GST Reporting Basis |
| Payroll | Salary, wages, superannuation, and PAYG withholding | N/A |
| Tax Field Mappings | Rules that map your Chart of Accounts categories to specific ATO form fields | N/A |
Important: Income and expense figures on the tax return use your Income Tax Reporting Basis setting, while GST figures use your GST Reporting Basis setting. These are governed by separate legislation and operate completely independently.
It is very common for businesses to use Cash for BAS/GST and Accrual for income tax. Because the two methods can differ, the revenue and expense figures on your BAS may not match those on your tax return. This is expected and correct — the BAS report should not be used as a basis for preparing your tax return income and expense figures when your account uses different methods for each.
In Australia, GST reporting is governed by the GST Act 1999 and income tax by the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997. This combination (Cash for BAS, Accrual for income tax) is the most popular choice for Australian small and medium businesses.
Each field shows a Source indicator:
| Source | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Account | Pulled from your account settings (e.g. ABN, company name) |
| Auto | Calculated automatically from your financial data |
| Manual | Manually entered or overridden by you |
| blank | Not yet populated |
Re-populating Data
If your financial data changes after creating the return (e.g. you allocate more bank transactions or update BAS periods), use the Re-populate Data action from the menu. This refreshes all auto-filled values with the latest data from your accounts.
Manual overrides are preserved — only auto-filled values are updated.
Sections
Section Status
Each section has a status indicating its review state:
| Status | Icon | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Incomplete | Grey circle | No data populated yet |
| Auto-filled | Orange question mark | Populated with data but not yet reviewed |
| Manually Edited | Blue pencil | You've changed one or more fields from the auto-filled value |
| Confirmed | Green tick | You've reviewed and confirmed the section is correct |
The sidebar navigation shows each section's status.
Sole Trader Return
| Section | ATO Reference | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Salary or wages | Item 1 | Employment income |
| Interest | Item 10 | Bank interest income |
| Dividends | Item 11 | Franked and unfranked dividends |
| Rent | Item 21 | Rental income and deductions |
| Business income | Item P8 | Net business income from the Business Schedule |
| Other income | Items 12-24 | Capital gains, foreign income, and other |
| Work-related deductions | D1-D5 | Car, travel, clothing, education, other work expenses |
| Other deductions | D6-D15 | Interest, donations, tax agent fees, income protection |
| Business details | Business Schedule | ABN, business name, industry code |
| Business income | Business Schedule | Sales revenue and other business income |
| Business expenses | Business Schedule | All deductible business expenses |
| GST summary | GST | GST collected and paid |
| PAYG instalments | T7-T8 | PAYG instalments paid during the year |
| Medicare levy | M1-M2 | Medicare levy and surcharge |
| Tax calculation | Tax estimate | Final tax payable or refundable |
Company Return
| Section | ATO Reference | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Section A | Company details | ABN, TFN, company name, activity, base rate entity status |
| Section B — P&L | Profit & Loss | Revenue, cost of sales, expenses, net profit |
| Section B — Balance Sheet | Balance Sheet | Assets, liabilities, equity |
| Section C | Reconciliation | Adjustments from accounting profit to taxable income |
| Section D | Losses | Tax losses carried forward and applied |
| Section E | Capital gains | Capital gains and losses |
| Section G | Tax calculation | Company income tax calculation |
| Franking account | Franking | Franking credits and debits |
| GST summary | GST | GST collected and paid |
| PAYG instalments | PAYG | PAYG instalments and withholding credits |
Simplified vs Advanced Mode
By default, Beeswax shows a simplified tax return that hides fields not relevant to service, consulting, and creative businesses. This dramatically reduces the number of fields you need to review.
What's Hidden in Simplified Mode
Fields and sections that are hidden include:
- Sole trader: Salary/wages, dividends, rental income, work-related deductions (D1–D5), cost of sales, and capital gains
- Company: Forestry MIS income, royalty expenses, trading stock, overseas leases and interest, franking account details, dividends paid, foreign income, compliance/international questions (Items 25–30), and many niche reconciliation and calculation statement items
These fields are typically only relevant to businesses with trading stock, rental properties, international operations, primary production, or complex investment structures.
Switching Modes
- Go to Account Settings > Accounting
- Toggle Simplified Tax Return on or off
- Save — the change applies immediately to all tax returns
Viewing Hidden Fields Temporarily
Even with simplified mode enabled, you can temporarily reveal all fields:
- Click "Show all fields" in the sidebar navigation
- Or click the "N advanced field(s) hidden" link at the bottom of any section
- This toggles all hidden fields into view without changing your account setting
Important: Hidden fields still exist on the return and will appear on the exported PDF with their auto-filled values (typically $0). Simplified mode only affects the editing view — it does not remove any ATO-required fields from the return itself.
Editing Values
Each section can be reviewed and edited:
- Click on any field to update its value
- Changes are saved automatically as you type
- Edited fields are marked as Manual to distinguish them from auto-filled values
- The original auto-filled value is preserved so you can always see what the system calculated
- Clearing a manual override (deleting the value) reverts the field back to its auto-filled value
Some fields are calculated and cannot be edited directly — they are computed from other fields (e.g. total income, net profit, net GST).
Confirming Sections
Once you're satisfied with a section, click the Confirm button (green tick) to mark it as reviewed. Confirmed sections are locked from editing until you unconfirm them.
To make further changes to a confirmed section, click the Unconfirm button to unlock it. The section returns to its previous status (auto-filled or manually edited).
All sections must be confirmed before you can finalise the return.
Tax Field Mappings
Tax field mappings tell Beeswax how to map your Chart of Accounts categories to specific ATO form fields. For example, mapping your "Sales Revenue" account to the "Gross payments for goods and services" field on the Business Schedule.
Default mappings are generated automatically based on account names:
- For service-based businesses, all income accounts default to Gross Sales Revenue unless they match specific patterns (interest, dividends, refunds, gains, grants, insurance recoveries → Other Income)
- Expense accounts are matched by name to categories like Motor Vehicle, Rent, Repairs, Superannuation, etc.
You can customise mappings to suit your chart of accounts structure. When you re-populate a tax return, the mappings are regenerated to pick up any new accounts.
GST Summary
The GST Summary section pulls data from your tax-coded transactions for the financial year — the same data source used by the BAS / Tax Codes report.
| Field | ATO Label | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Total GST collected | G1 (1A) | GST collected on income — from transactions with the "GST On Income" tax code |
| Total GST paid | G2 (1B) | GST paid on expenses (input tax credits) — from transactions with the "GST On Expenses" tax code |
| Net GST position | G3 | Calculated: G1 minus G2. Positive = you owe the ATO; negative = refund due |
If the GST fields show $0, check that:
- Your transactions have tax codes assigned (GST On Income / GST On Expenses)
- BAS periods have been created for the financial year
- Your BAS / Tax Codes report shows GST amounts for the same period
Reviewing a return
Beeswax does not run an automated review over your return. Reviewing is a
conversation: connect Claude Desktop (or another MCP client) to Beeswax and ask
the assistant to work through the return with you. It can read every figure and
the transactions behind it, compare against last year's return, and explain
what it finds. Where a figure needs explaining, it records a field note
against that row — the same note timeline you can add to yourself with the
note icon — and the return's Discussion panel keeps the back-and-forth in
one place. See Preparing a return with an AI assistant below.
Return Status
Tax returns move through these statuses:
| Status | Description |
|---|---|
| Draft | Data populated, sections being reviewed and confirmed |
| Finalised | All sections confirmed and locked — ready for lodgement |
| Lodged | Submitted to the ATO |
Finalising
To finalise a tax return, all sections must be confirmed first. Once finalised:
- The return is locked — no fields can be edited
- The return can be exported as PDF for lodgement
If you need to make corrections after finalising, use Unlock (unfinalise) to reopen the return for editing.
Progress
The progress bar in the sidebar shows what percentage of sections have been confirmed. A return is 100% complete when all sections are confirmed and ready for finalisation.
PDF Export
You can export your tax return as a PDF at any stage. The PDF is formatted to match the ATO form layout and includes:
- All sections with ATO field references
- Auto-filled vs manually entered indicators
- Tax calculation summary
Click Export PDF from the actions menu to download.
Tip: Add
?debug=trueto the URL to preview the PDF as HTML in your browser.
Permissions
- Owners and Super Admins can create, edit, finalise, and export tax returns
- Accountants can view and review tax returns and export PDFs
- Managers, Basic users, and Clients cannot access tax returns
Note: Tax Returns are included with every paid plan and during the trial. Only available for Australian businesses.
Preparing a return with an AI assistant
If you've connected Claude Desktop (or another MCP client) to Beeswax, the whole
preparation workflow is available through the assistant with an API token that has
the tax_returns:read and tax_returns:write scopes: run the preflight checks,
create the return, refresh figures from your ledger, review each figure against
the transactions behind it, record notes explaining what needs explaining, adjust
fields, confirm each section, and finalise. See the
Connect Claude with MCP help page for setup. Lodging with the ATO still happens
outside Beeswax.