End of financial year is the busiest, most consequential 30 days of an Australian small business owner's calendar. Get it right and you'll claim every dollar you're entitled to, lodge on time, and start the new year with clean books. Get it wrong and you'll leave deductions on the table, miss the super deduction window, and spend the next twelve months untangling avoidable mistakes.
This is the only EOFY checklist you need. We cover every action item — what to do in the lead-up to 30 June 2026, what to finalise on the day, and what to lodge in the weeks that follow. Whether you're a sole trader, partnership, company, or trust, work through this guide section by section and tick off as you go.
Income tax returns for 2024–25 (lodged through registered tax agent, most clients)
5 June 2026
Concessional finalisation deadline for some agent-lodged returns
30 June 2026
End of financial year — last day to incur deductible expenses, make super contributions, prepay expenses
14 July 2026
STP finalisation declaration due (employers)
28 July 2026
Q4 (Apr–Jun) BAS lodgement and payment, super guarantee for Q4
31 October 2026
Self-lodgement deadline for FY2025–26 income tax return
Mark these in your calendar now. Late lodgement attracts a penalty of $330 for each 28-day period the document is overdue, capped at $1,650 for small entities.
Before you can claim a single deduction, you need clean books. Reconcile:
All business bank accounts
Credit cards used for business expenses
PayPal, Stripe, Square, or other payment processors
Loan accounts and lines of credit
Match every transaction to an invoice, expense, or transfer. Investigate anything that doesn't balance. Reconciliation errors are the single biggest cause of incorrect tax returns and BAS lodgements — fix them now, not in October.
If you're using OneBookPlus, your bank feeds reconcile automatically and any unmatched transactions surface in the Reconciliation dashboard. If you're still using spreadsheets, block out a full day for this.
The end of the financial year is your best leverage to collect outstanding payments. Run an aged receivables report and follow up every overdue invoice. For invoices that are genuinely uncollectable, you may be able to write them off as a bad debt deduction — but only if specific conditions are met (see below).
If your business holds trading stock, you must perform a stocktake on 30 June. Count every item, value it at cost, market selling value, or replacement cost (you can use the lowest), and record the figure. The closing stock figure feeds directly into your tax return.
Small businesses with a turnover under $10 million can use the simplified trading stock rules: if your stock has changed by less than $5,000 over the year, you can use last year's closing figure as this year's figure — no formal stocktake required. Document your reasoning either way.
List every depreciable asset your business owns: vehicles, equipment, computers, furniture, machinery. For each one, decide:
Keep depreciating — continue claiming an annual deduction
Write off — assets costing under the instant asset write-off threshold (currently $20,000 for small businesses with turnover under $10m, applicable for assets first used or installed by 30 June 2026) can be claimed in full
Dispose of — if an asset is broken, obsolete, or sold, record the disposal so you can claim a balancing adjustment
Calculate depreciation using the diminishing value or prime cost method — your accounting software should handle this automatically.
If cashflow allows, bring forward expenses you'd be paying in July or August anyway. Anything paid before 30 June 2026 is deductible in this financial year:
Office supplies and consumables
Subscriptions and software licences (up to 12 months prepaid is generally deductible)
Professional development courses and books
Memberships of trade or professional associations
Repairs and maintenance on income-producing assets
Insurance premiums (annual policies)
The classic example: if your annual professional indemnity insurance falls due on 5 July, paying it on 28 June pulls the deduction forward into this year.
The flip side of bringing forward expenses is deferring income. If you're on the cash basis, an invoice issued in late June but paid in early July sits in next year's income. If you're on accruals, the date of the invoice is what matters.
Don't play games — backdating invoices is fraud. But if a project genuinely completes in July and you'd normally invoice on completion, that's next year's revenue.
Concessional (pre-tax) super contributions are deductible to the contributor and capped at $30,000 per person per year for 2025–26. If you have unused cap from earlier years and your total super balance is under $500,000 at 30 June 2025, you may be able to use carry-forward rules to contribute more.
For sole traders and partners: any personal contribution made before 30 June 2026 can be claimed as a deduction in your individual tax return, provided you submit a notice of intent to your super fund and they acknowledge it.
For employers: the Q4 superannuation guarantee instalment for the April–June quarter is due 28 July 2026. To claim it as a deduction in this financial year, you must pay it by 30 June 2026. Pay early — your fund needs to receive the money, not just be notified.
This is the single most overlooked EOFY tax planning move. Estimate the deduction value: $10,000 in extra concessional contributions saves up to $4,500 in tax for someone on the top marginal rate.
To deduct an unpaid invoice as a bad debt, three conditions must be met:
The debt must have been included as assessable income in this or an earlier year
The debt must be genuinely bad — i.e., reasonable steps to recover have failed
The debt must be physically written off in your books before 30 June 2026 (i.e., a journal entry recording the write-off)
If you're registered for GST, you can also claim back the GST you paid on the original sale. Document your collection efforts before writing anything off — a bare ledger entry won't survive an ATO review.
For companies and trusts, distributions and bonuses must be resolved before 30 June 2026 to be effective for this year. The ATO closely scrutinises end-of-year resolutions:
Trust distribution resolutions must be in place by 30 June 2026 (check your trust deed for any earlier requirement)
Company directors' bonuses must be formally declared and recorded
Beneficiary statements should be retained as evidence
Speak to your accountant before the last week of June. Late or backdated resolutions are routinely struck down and can trigger top-rate trustee tax of 47%.
If you have employees, you must lodge a finalisation declaration in STP by 14 July 2026. This tells the ATO that your year-to-date payroll figures are final and gives employees access to their pre-filled income statements (formerly group certificates) in myGov.
Steps:
Reconcile your STP year-to-date totals against your payroll register
Check reportable fringe benefits are loaded
Verify employer super contributions are reported
Lodge the finalisation event through your STP-enabled software
If you discover a mistake after lodging the finalisation, you can submit a correction — but you must notify affected employees.
If you paid contractors or other non-STP-reportable amounts subject to withholding, prepare and issue PAYG payment summaries by 14 July 2026 and lodge the annual report with the ATO by 14 August 2026.
If you're in the building, cleaning, courier, IT, road freight, security, or investigation industry — or if you pay contractors in those sectors — you must lodge a Taxable Payments Annual Report by 28 August 2026. The report lists every payment to contractors during the year.
Most state workers compensation schemes require an annual reconciliation of declared wages versus actual wages. Check your state insurer's deadline — it's usually August or September.
Fringe Benefits Tax operates on a different year (1 April – 31 March). If you provide reportable fringe benefits, your FBT return is due 21 May for self-lodgement or 25 June through a tax agent — already past for 2026 if you missed it.
Once your books are closed and STP is finalised, you can lodge your income tax return:
Self-lodgement deadline: 31 October 2026
Through a registered tax agent: typically 15 May 2027 (assuming you're registered with the agent before 31 October 2026)
For sole traders and partners, you'll lodge an individual return (and a partnership return for the partnership). For companies, a company return; for trusts, a trust return plus individual returns for beneficiaries.
Have ready:
Profit and loss statement
Balance sheet as at 30 June 2026
BAS summaries
Asset register and depreciation schedule
Stocktake figures
Records of bad debts written off
Notice of intent to claim a deduction for personal super contributions (if applicable)
Buy and install eligible business assets (vehicles, equipment, technology) before 30 June and write them off in full — provided each asset costs less than the threshold ($20,000 for small businesses for FY2025–26) and your turnover is under $10 million.
A $15,000 second-hand ute for the trade business is fully deductible if it's on the road and used for income-producing purposes by 30 June.
Small businesses with aggregated turnover under $10 million (and individuals incurring non-business expenditure) can prepay up to 12 months of deductible expenses — rent, insurance, subscriptions, professional services — and claim the full amount this year. Cash out, deduction in.
Genuine repair work (not improvement) on income-producing assets is fully deductible in the year incurred. Get the leaking roof fixed and the squeaky shop door oiled before 30 June.
Every GST-inclusive business expense entitles you to a GST credit on your BAS. Make sure all Q4 receipts are loaded and categorised before you lodge — missed credits are missed cash.
Super must clear into the fund before 30 June, not just be initiated. Bank-to-fund clearing can take 5–7 business days. Always pay by mid-June if you want a deduction this year.
The ATO has sophisticated data-matching. Backdated trust resolutions, invoices, and journal entries are picked up in audits. The penalties for tax avoidance via backdating start at 75% of the shortfall.
Mixing personal and business expenditure is the fastest way to attract an audit. Keep clean separate bank accounts and credit cards. If a vehicle is 70% business and 30% personal, only claim 70%.
If you sold a business asset (property, shares, equipment) during the year, capital gains are reportable. The 50% CGT discount for individuals applies if the asset was held for more than 12 months. Small business CGT concessions can reduce the gain to zero in many cases — but only if you meet the eligibility tests.
Every tax invoice over $82.50 must contain mandatory ATO-prescribed information. Invoices that don't comply can mean denied GST credits for your customers — and questions about your bookkeeping.
The ATO requires you to keep all business records for at least five years from the date of lodgement. Digital is fine, but they must be readable, accessible, and unaltered.
EOFY rewards preparation and punishes procrastination. If you've been winging it with spreadsheets, this is the year to switch to software that handles GST, BAS, payroll, super, and reporting automatically.
Start your free OneBookPlus account — no credit card, no time limit on the free plan. Connect your bank, import your existing data, and walk into 30 June with everything reconciled, every deduction captured, and every deadline tracked.
EOFY 2026 lands in a few short weeks. Tick off the list. Lodge on time. Start FY2026–27 in front.
EOFYend of financial yeartaxBASsuperannuationSTPsmall businessAustralia2026