BAS Statement Example Free Download: Excel, PDF, Word, Google Docs & Sheet

What Is a BAS Statement Example?

A BAS statement example is not a real tax document. Think of it as a floor plan before the house is built. You can see where every room goes, how the numbers connect, and what the finished statement is meant to look like, without any of it being lodged anywhere.

The real thing, the actual Business Activity Statement, is the form the ATO sends a GST registered business every month, quarter, or year, depending on turnover. It reports GST, PAYG withholding, and sometimes PAYG instalments, all in the one document. The ATO explains what a BAS covers on its Business activity statements page, and it is worth reading once even if your accountant handles the rest.

Here is where people mix things up. A BAS statement example helps you understand the layout and the math. The actual BAS is issued to your business specifically, tied to your ABN and your reporting period, and it has to be lodged through an accepted channel. Your income tax return is a separate document again, even though PAYG instalments you pay through your BAS can count toward your income tax later.

Who Needs to Lodge a BAS?

If you are registered for GST, you lodge a business activity statement. That part is simple. The part that trips people up is figuring out whether they should be registered in the first place.

Registration becomes mandatory once your GST turnover reaches $75,000 a year, or $150,000 for a non profit. Below that line, registration is optional, and plenty of sole traders register anyway because clients expect a tax invoice with GST on it. Once you register, the ATO decides how often you report based on your turnover, and it sends you a BAS automatically for each period.

Not every entity needs to think about this the same way. A sole trader running a side business, a growing partnership, and a small company can all end up lodging the same style of BAS, just on different schedules. The ATO's registering for GST page lays out the exact thresholds if you want to check your own situation.

BAS Statement Due Dates: Quarterly, Monthly and Annual

Deadlines are where a clean BAS statement example earns its keep, because seeing the actual dates next to actual labels makes the whole cycle click.

Most small businesses report quarterly. The standard due dates are 28 October, 28 February, 28 April, and 28 July. Businesses with GST turnover of $20 million or more must report and pay monthly instead, with the deadline falling on the 21st of the following month. A smaller group, mostly voluntarily registered businesses under the $75,000 threshold, can report annually.

Two things worth knowing before you mark a date in your calendar. First, lodging online can buy you an extra two weeks on quarterly BAS, and a registered agent may extend it further. Second, when a due date lands on a weekend or public holiday, it simply rolls to the next business day, it does not disappear. Always check the actual date printed on your own BAS rather than relying on a generic table, including this one. The ATO keeps the current schedule on its due dates for lodging and paying your BAS page.

What a BAS Statement Includes: Labels and Fields

This is the part a blank form never explains well, and it is exactly why a worked BAS statement example is worth more than the instructions booklet.

Every business activity statement is built around a handful of labels, and once you know what each one means, the whole document stops looking like alphabet soup.

G1, Total sales. Your total sales for the period, including GST if it applies. This is the number everything else gets checked against.

1A, GST on sales. The GST you collected from customers and now owe the ATO. Under Simpler BAS, this is simply your GST inclusive taxable sales divided by eleven.

1B, GST on purchases. The GST you paid on business purchases, which you can generally claim back as a credit.

W1, Total salary, wages and other payments. What you paid staff before tax.

W2, Amount withheld. The tax you withheld from those wages on your staff's behalf.

Label 4, Income tax withheld amount. Usually the same figure as W2, carried into the summary section.

Most small businesses use Simpler BAS, which only requires you to report G1, 1A, and 1B, with the more detailed labels like G2, G3, G10, and G11 kept as background working figures rather than things you have to report separately. The ATO explains exactly which labels apply to you on its GST reporting methods page.

What Our BAS Statement Example Template Includes

Plenty of sites will show you a picture of a BAS. Fewer will show you one that actually adds up, and fewer still will hand you the working file behind it.

If you have ever downloaded a blank BAS statement template and still had no idea what a finished one should look like, this fixes that gap. Our BAS statement example is built as a real, calculating document, not a screenshot with the sensitive details blurred out. Open the Excel version and the six input cells sit in blue, clearly separated from the black formula cells that do the actual work. Change the taxable sales figure and watch G1, 1A, and the final net amount update in front of you. That is the difference between reading about how GST on sales gets calculated and actually watching it happen.

We also built in something most templates skip entirely: an evidence trail. Our example includes a prepared by, reviewed by, and approved for lodgment section that doubles as a simple BAS lodgment checklist, because a real BAS rarely gets typed up and sent off by one person in one sitting. It gets drafted, checked, and signed off, and if a number looks off, someone needs to be able to say who caught it and when. That reviewer layer is the difference between a document you can hand to an auditor with confidence and one you are hoping nobody ever asks about.

The Word version mirrors the same numbers in a clean, printable layout, styled to sit alongside your other business documents rather than looking like a downloaded government form. Every file carries a clear label stating it is a fictional example, since the goal here is to teach the shape of a correct BAS, not to hand you something that could ever be mistaken for the real one.

BAS vs IAS vs GST Report: Which Document Does What?

Three acronyms, three different jobs, and yes, people mix them up constantly.

A BAS, short for business activity statement, reports GST together with PAYG withholding and sometimes PAYG instalments, all in one statement. An IAS, or Instalment Activity Statement, is what a business without a GST registration uses to report PAYG withholding or instalments on their own, since they have no GST component to add. A GST report, meanwhile, is usually just internal, the summary your accounting software generates to show you what will land on your next BAS before it is actually due.

If you are GST registered, you will almost always be dealing with a BAS, not an IAS. The IAS mostly shows up for businesses below the GST threshold that still have PAYG obligations to report.

How to Lodge a BAS Statement

Knowing how to lodge a BAS statement without second guessing every label is mostly about doing the steps in order. Lodging is not complicated once you have done it a couple of times, but skipping a step early tends to cause the headaches later.

Confirm the period and the deadline

Check the actual period and due date printed on your BAS rather than assuming it matches last quarter. Reporting cycles can change if your turnover crosses a threshold.

Choose the right reporting method

Work out whether you are on Simpler BAS, full reporting, or GST instalments, since that decides which labels you actually need to fill in.

Gather your records

Pull together tax invoices, receipts, bank statements, and payroll reports before you touch a single label. Trying to reconstruct figures from memory is how errors creep in.

Reconcile your accounts

Match your bank and payment processor activity against your books. A payment that landed a few days late, or a processor fee nobody logged, is the most common source of a BAS that will not balance.

Check your GST classification

Confirm which sales and purchases are taxable, GST free, or input taxed, since one misclassified sale can throw off G1 and 1A together.

Review PAYG obligations

Cross check W1, W2, and label 4 against your actual payroll reports, not just what last quarter's BAS said.

Resolve any exceptions

If something does not reconcile, note why, get it approved, and keep that note on a simple BAS lodgment checklist. Silence is what turns a small discrepancy into an audit question a year later.

Lodge and record the result

Submit through your chosen channel, then note the lodgment reference and payment status separately. A BAS is not finished the moment it is sent. It is finished once the payment clears and you can prove it.

BAS Statement Examples: Three Worked Scenarios

Numbers explain a BAS better than any paragraph can, so here are three, based on a fictional business called Harbourview Trading Co.

Scenario one, a standard quarterly BAS. Harbourview records $55,000 in GST inclusive taxable sales and $5,000 in GST free sales for the quarter, giving a G1 of $60,000. GST on sales at 1A works out to $5,000, calculated by dividing the taxable portion by eleven. Non-capital purchases of $22,000 produce a 1B of $2,000. On the PAYG side, $18,000 in wages produces $3,600 withheld, reported at W1, W2, and label 4. Add 1A and label 4 for an 8A of $8,600, subtract 1B of $2,000, and the amount payable to the ATO comes to $6,600. Since Harbourview reports under Simpler BAS, only G1, 1A, and 1B actually need to appear on the lodged statement, with the rest kept as working figures.

Scenario two, a nil BAS. A sole trader takes three months of parental leave and issues no invoices for the quarter. Every label, from G1 through 1A and 1B, is reported as zero. A nil BAS still has to be lodged by the due date. Skipping it because there is nothing to report is one of the more common ways businesses accidentally rack up a late lodgment penalty.

Scenario three, a sole trader on monthly reporting. A sole trader with GST turnover above $20 million, admittedly rare but not impossible in high volume trading, reports monthly instead of quarterly. The math at each label works exactly the same way as the quarterly example, just compressed into a shorter, more frequent cycle, which means smaller individual GST swings but twelve lodgments a year instead of four.

What to Do When Your BAS Figures Do Not Reconcile

A BAS that will not balance is not an emergency. It is a prompt to slow down for ten minutes before you lodge anything.

Start with the obvious suspects. A missed invoice, a duplicated expense, or a payment recorded on the wrong date will throw off G1 or 1B faster than almost anything else. Bank fees and processor charges are another common culprit, since the amount that lands in your account is rarely the exact figure a customer paid.

If you genuinely have nothing to report, lodge a nil BAS anyway rather than skipping the period entirely. If you cannot pay the full amount by the due date, contact the ATO before the deadline passes, since a payment plan arranged early looks very different to a payment that simply never showed up. And if a mistake makes it through to a BAS you already lodged, the ATO allows corrections and adjustments on a later statement rather than forcing you to refile the original.

When in doubt, a registered BAS agent is worth the call. They are regulated by the Tax Practitioners Board, and using one gives you a level of protection you do not get from an unregistered preparer, a detail business.gov.au spells out plainly.

How Enerpize Supports Your BAS Preparation

None of this gets easier by working harder inside a spreadsheet. It gets easier when the records behind your BAS are already organized before the quarter even ends, so preparing your next statement is a matter of checking numbers rather than hunting for them.

That is really what separates a stressful BAS from a routine one. The business scrambling through folders and bank apps two days before the due date is usually the same business that never had its records structured for this moment in the first place. Fix the structure and the deadline stops feeling urgent.

Sales and Invoicing Records

Every invoice raised through Enerpize keeps GST broken out at the line level, so your G1 and 1A figures are traceable back to the actual sale rather than a single lump total you have to trust blindly. Our accounting software for small businesses keeps that detail attached to every transaction automatically, including recurring invoices and client portal payments, so a sale raised in month one does not need to be reconstructed by hand in month three.

Expense and Purchase Records

Purchases, supplier invoices, and the GST paid on them sit in one ledger instead of scattered receipts, which is exactly what your 1B figure depends on. If you also issue a tax invoice for a GST registered sale, our Australian GST invoice template keeps the format consistent with what your BAS expects to see, right down to how the GST amount is displayed on the line.

Payroll and PAYG Withholding Records

W1, W2, and label 4 all come from the same source: what you actually paid staff and what you actually withheld. Enerpize's payroll module keeps a pay run and payslip on file for every payment, so those two figures are a lookup rather than a reconstruction. When wages get paid outside a clean payroll process, that is usually where W1 and W2 stop matching what the BAS expects.

Bank Reconciliation and Reporting

Matching bank activity against your books is where most BAS discrepancies get caught, and our bank reconciliation template gives you a structured way to do that before you touch a single label. When a sale needs adjusting after the fact, our credit note template keeps that correction properly recorded rather than buried in a manual note that someone forgets about by the time the next BAS is due.

Reports That Show Where You Stand Before BAS Is Due

A BAS should never be the first time you see your quarter's numbers. Enerpize's sales, purchases, and accounting reports let you check your running GST position before the period even closes, so the actual BAS preparation becomes a confirmation step instead of a discovery process.

Getting the Records Right in the First Place

The earlier a sale or expense gets logged correctly, the less reconciliation work you have at BAS time. Our free invoice maker is a quick way to get GST correctly itemized on every invoice from day one, even before you are ready to move your whole workflow into Enerpize.

BAS Checks for Different Small Business Industries

The core labels stay the same across every industry. What changes is where the mistakes tend to hide, and those blind spots tend to repeat within an industry far more than they vary across one.

Retail and Ecommerce

Reconcile gross sales against net settlements from your payment processor, since fees, chargebacks, and refunds can quietly eat into what actually lands in your account versus what you reported as a sale. A store running both a physical till and an online cart also needs to check that neither channel's sales get counted twice, or dropped, when the two feed into the same BAS. Our retail store management software keeps POS and online sales in the same ledger so that check takes minutes instead of a spreadsheet merge.

Construction and Trades

Progress invoices, retention amounts, and supplier credits can span more than one reporting period, so check that a sale gets reported in the period it was actually made, not the period it was paid. Retention held back until practical completion is a common source of a BAS that looks right one quarter and wrong the next, simply because the timing of the invoice and the timing of the cash do not line up. Our construction management software keeps progress claims, retention, and supplier costs tied to the job they belong to, not just the date they were entered.

Hospitality and Food Service

Food GST is genuinely one of the more counterintuitive areas of the whole system. Basic, unprepared food is generally GST-free, but the moment it is cooked, heated, or served for consumption on the premises, it becomes taxable. A café selling a bag of raw coffee beans and the same café selling a takeaway flat white are on opposite sides of that line, and a lot of hospitality businesses only discover the distinction when a BAS does not add up. Our restaurant and hospitality management software applies tax settings at the item level, so a raw ingredient and a prepared dish do not have to share the same GST treatment by accident.

Healthcare and NDIS Providers

Not every service is automatically GST free. Health and disability support providers often assume their whole client base falls under an exemption, when in reality the treatment depends on the specific supply, who is providing it, and whether it meets the criteria for a GST-free health or NDIS support. Check each service against its own classification rather than applying one answer to the whole business. Our clinics management software lets you set GST treatment per service rather than per client, which is where most of these providers actually need the flexibility.

Consultants and Professional Services

Separate any private use of business expenses, unpaid invoices, and foreign currency receipts before you calculate GST on sales, since mixing personal and business figures is one of the fastest ways to end up correcting a BAS after the fact. An unpaid invoice sitting on cash basis accounting is another common trap, since it should not be counted as GST on sales until the payment actually lands. Our consulting service management software keeps time, invoices, and payment status connected, so a consultant can see at a glance which invoices are actually collected income for the period.

Key Takeaways

A BAS statement example shows you the finished shape of a document that otherwise only makes sense once you have already filled one out.

1. A BAS statement example is a fictional, completed sample. The real business activity statement is issued to your business specifically and has to be lodged through an accepted channel.
2. GST registration becomes compulsory at $75,000 turnover, and that registration decides whether you lodge a BAS at all.
3. Standard quarterly due dates are 28 October, 28 February, 28 April, and 28 July, with monthly lodgment required at $20 million turnover.
4. Most small businesses only need to report G1, 1A, and 1B under Simpler BAS, not the full set of GST labels.
5. A nil BAS still needs to be lodged on time, even when there is genuinely nothing to report.
6. Reconciling your bank activity against your books before you touch a label is the single biggest reason a BAS balances the first time.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a BAS statement example?

A BAS statement example is a fictional, fully completed sample of a Business Activity Statement, showing how GST, PAYG, and the final payable amount fit together. It is not an official ATO document and cannot be lodged.

What does a completed BAS statement example look like?

It shows every relevant label filled in, from G1 and 1A through W1 and W2, with a final summary showing what is owed or refunded. Our downloadable Word and Excel versions show exactly that, based on a fictional quarterly business.

Can I download a BAS statement template in Excel or Word?

Yes, our BAS statement example is available as a free Excel file with working formulas and a Word file formatted for printing, both based on the same fictional figures.

Is this checklist an official ATO BAS statement form?

No. Our BAS statement example and any accompanying checklist are working documents built for preparation and review. They are not issued by, endorsed by, or affiliated with the ATO, and cannot be used for lodgment.

What are the BAS statement due dates?

Standard quarterly due dates are 28 October, 28 February, 28 April, and 28 July. Monthly BAS is due on the 21st of the following month, and annual BAS generally aligns with your income tax return.

How do I lodge a BAS statement online?

Most businesses lodge through Online services for business, myGov if they are a sole trader, or through a registered tax or BAS agent. Lodging online can give you extra time compared to a paper form.

How do I do a BAS statement for my small business?

Confirm your reporting method, since most small businesses only need to work with Simpler BAS figures, gather your records, reconcile your accounts, check your GST and PAYG figures against your reports, resolve anything that does not balance, then lodge and record the result.

Do I need to lodge a nil BAS if I have nothing to report?

Yes. A nil BAS, with every label reported as zero, still has to be lodged by the due date. Skipping the period is one of the more common ways a late lodgment penalty shows up.

What is the difference between BAS and IAS?

A BAS reports GST along with PAYG withholding and instalments. An IAS is used by businesses without a GST registration to report PAYG on its own.

What should I do if I cannot pay my BAS on time?

Contact the ATO before the due date passes. A payment plan arranged in advance is treated very differently to a payment that simply never arrives.

What records should I keep after lodging my BAS?

Keep your lodgment reference, payment confirmation, and the working papers behind your figures. If a registered BAS agent prepared your BAS, keep their working file as well.

About the Author

Omar El Bahr is a Senior Digital Growth Specialist at Enerpize, where he leads SEO, content strategy, and organic growth across international markets. He is a Forbes Communications Council contributor and has written for Entrepreneur on business communication and digital strategy.

This page and its downloadable files are fictional examples for educational purposes only, not affiliated with, endorsed by, or issued by the Australian Taxation Office, and should not be used for lodgment or relied on as tax advice. For your actual obligations, consult the ATO or a registered BAS agent.