A BAS worksheet is the working document that sits behind every Business Activity Statement lodgement. It maps the figures from your client's coded transaction ledger — total sales, GST collected, GST credits, wages — to the specific ATO fields that appear on the BAS. Getting that mapping right, and being able to show a clear audit trail from each field total back to the underlying transactions, is the core job of BAS preparation.
Reconlink's BAS worksheet generator does that mapping automatically. Every field — G1 through to W1 — is populated directly from the coded transaction ledger, so there is no manual copy-and-paste step and no reconciliation-to-spreadsheet export in between. This guide walks through the full export workflow from confirming reconciliation is complete through to archiving the lodgement for future comparison.
Note: Reconlink exports the BAS worksheet as a PDF or CSV. It does not lodge the BAS. Lodgement is completed separately through the ATO portal or your registered tax agent software.
What you will need before you start
- All bank accounts for the client fully reconciled for the BAS period
- Transactions coded with GST treatment (Reconlink's coding engine handles this automatically; you are reviewing and approving, not manually coding)
- Access to the client's file with at least Preparer-level permissions
Step 1: Confirm reconciliation is complete
The BAS worksheet export will only reflect the transactions that have been coded and reconciled. Before you open BAS Prep, go to the client's Reconciliation view and confirm that:
- Every bank account for the period shows a green Reconciled status
- The review queue is empty or all flagged items have been cleared
If any account is not fully reconciled, Reconlink will surface a warning when you attempt to generate the worksheet. It is better to resolve this now. Partially reconciled periods produce incomplete field totals — and the ATO will notice.
Step 2: Navigate to BAS Prep
Open the client's file and click BAS Prep in the left navigation. Select the BAS period (quarterly or monthly) you are preparing. Reconlink will pull the coded transactions for that period and populate the worksheet automatically.
Step 3: Review the auto-populated field totals
The worksheet displays every BAS field alongside its auto-calculated total:
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| G1 | Total sales (including GST) |
| G2 | Export sales |
| G3 | GST-free domestic sales |
| G4 | Input-taxed sales |
| G10 | Capital purchases |
| G11 | Non-capital purchases |
| G14 | Purchases for private use or non-income-tax purposes |
| G15 | Estimated purchases for private use |
| 1A | GST on sales |
| 1B | GST credits |
| W1 | Total wages and salaries |
Two figures to check at a minimum before going any further:
- G1 vs the profit and loss: G1 (total sales including GST) should be consistent with your client's revenue for the period, grossed up for GST. A significant discrepancy usually means miscoded transactions or a missed bank account.
- 1A as a percentage of taxable sales: 1A should be approximately 10% of taxable sales (G1 minus G2, G3, and G4). If the ratio is noticeably off, there are likely transactions coded with the wrong GST treatment.
Step 4: Drill into any field that looks unusual
Every field total in Reconlink is drillable. If a figure does not look right, click the field total. A transaction list appears showing exactly which coded transactions make up that total. Click any individual transaction to see the full coding detail — account code, GST treatment, and the rule or model suggestion that produced it.
This takes two clicks. There is no separate report to run and no export to open in a spreadsheet.
Fix any miscoded transactions directly in the transaction view. The worksheet field totals update automatically when you return to BAS Prep.
Step 5: Run the pre-lodgement cross-checks
Before exporting, run Reconlink's built-in cross-checks. Click Run checks in the BAS Prep toolbar. The system verifies:
- G1 vs the reconciled ledger: Total sales per the BAS matches the sum of coded income transactions for the period.
- W1 vs STP data: If your client's payroll is connected, W1 (total wages) is compared against the figures reported through Single Touch Payroll. Variances flag for review.
- 1B reasonableness: GST credits (1B) are checked against GST-coded purchase transactions. 1B should not exceed the GST implied by total coded purchases — if it does, there are likely duplicate or incorrectly coded entries.
Any failed check appears as a warning with a link to the relevant transactions. Clear each warning before proceeding to export.
For a broader overview of the BAS preparation process, including how to set up coding rules that make this step faster, see the full BAS preparation guide for Australian accounting practices.
Step 6: Export the worksheet
Once the cross-checks pass, click Export worksheet. Choose your format:
- PDF — for client sign-off, file archiving, or sending to a tax agent for review. The PDF includes all field totals, the cross-check results, and the reconciliation status confirmation.
- CSV — for importing field totals directly into tax agent software (e.g. Xero Tax, MYOB Tax) or for uploading to the ATO portal where your software does not support direct lodgement.
You can export both formats if needed — for example, PDF for your file and CSV for the tax agent.
Step 7: Archive the lodgement
After export, click Archive period in BAS Prep. Reconlink stores the exported worksheet alongside a snapshot of the field totals for that quarter. In future periods, the Quarter comparison panel in BAS Prep will show the current quarter's figures alongside the prior two quarters, flagging any field that has moved by more than 20% between periods.
This comparison is one of the most practical early-warning tools in the workflow. Material variances caught here — before lodgement — are far easier to explain and correct than variances the ATO raises after the fact. For a checklist of what to review at each BAS cycle, see the BAS preparation checklist for accounting practices.
Frequently asked questions
Does Reconlink lodge the BAS automatically? No. Reconlink generates and exports the BAS worksheet; lodgement is a separate step completed through the ATO Business Portal or registered tax agent software. This is intentional — lodgement requires authorisation from the tax agent or the client, and keeping that step outside the reconciliation platform ensures a clear separation of responsibilities.
What happens if I export before reconciliation is complete? Reconlink will display a warning identifying which bank accounts are not yet fully reconciled and will not allow the export to proceed until those accounts are cleared. This prevents incomplete figures reaching the ATO.
Can I re-export a worksheet after making corrections? Yes. You can re-run the cross-checks and export as many times as needed within an open period. Once you archive the period, the worksheet is locked. If you need to make corrections after archiving, contact support to unlock the period — the prior export is retained in the lodgement history so you have a clear record of what changed.
What formats does the CSV export use? The CSV follows the column structure used by the ATO's business portal and is compatible with the import functions in Xero Tax and MYOB Tax. If you use different tax agent software and the CSV columns need adjusting, the column headers can be remapped in Settings → BAS Export before you generate the file.
See the BAS worksheet in action
The steps above cover the full export workflow, but the fastest way to understand how the field drilldown and cross-checks work in practice is to see them run on a live client file.
Explore all Reconlink features to see how BAS Prep fits into the broader reconciliation workflow, or book a demo and we will walk through the BAS worksheet generator with your own client data.