Accounting and year end
Laurence Ward is an accountant serving Hervey Bay, Toogoom, Maryborough and the wider Fraser Coast from Toogoom in Queensland, and working remotely with businesses anywhere in Australia. He has spent more than 50 years on Australian business books. He is not a registered tax agent, so where a client needs a return or a BAS lodged, Alpine Accounts brings in a Tax Practitioners Board registered tax agent and works alongside them. You get one relationship rather than two, and the agent works from books that are already reconciled.
What an accountant is actually for
Most small businesses only interact with an accountant once a year, to get a return done. That is compliance, and it is the least valuable thing an accountant can do for you. It looks backwards, it arrives months late, and by the time it lands every decision it might have informed has already been made.
The useful work happens during the year: accounts that are accurate as you go, reporting you can act on, and someone who understands the business well enough to tell you when a number is drifting. That is where fifty years of pattern recognition earns its keep.
How the registered agent arrangement works
In Australia only a Tax Practitioners Board registered agent may prepare or lodge a tax return or BAS for a fee. Laurence is an accountant, not a registered agent, so he does not do that part.
What happens instead is straightforward. Alpine Accounts keeps the accounts accurate all year. When lodgement is due, a registered tax agent is brought in, engaged for that work, and Laurence works alongside them so they are not starting cold. You do not have to go and find an agent, and you are not explaining your business twice.
The practical effect is usually that the agent’s bill is smaller. Most of what a tax agent charges for at year end is reconstruction: chasing records, fixing coding, working out what a transaction was. If that is already done, their part is short.
Year end without the scramble
A clean year end is a consequence of a clean year, not an event in July. Reconciliations current, balance sheet accounts actually agreed rather than assumed, fixed assets and depreciation maintained, loans and hire purchase agreements reconciled to the statements.
Businesses that work this way stop dreading the end of the financial year, because there is nothing waiting to be discovered.
Common questions
Are you an accountant or a bookkeeper?
Both. Laurence is an accountant with more than 50 years on Australian business books and a Swinburne qualification, and the practice also does the day to day bookkeeping. The distinction that matters legally is that he is not a registered tax agent, which is a separate registration.
So who does my tax return?
A registered tax agent, brought in by us and working alongside Laurence. You are not left to find one. Because your accounts are already reconciled, their work is faster and usually costs less than a cold year end engagement.
Can I keep my existing accountant or tax agent?
Yes, and many clients do. Alpine Accounts handles the accounts and reporting through the year and hands your agent clean records at year end. Most agents are glad of it.