EOFY Bookkeeping Checklist: What Your Bookkeeper Needs From You
Wayne Willey
The end of the financial year has a way of sneaking up on even the most organised small business owners. One minute it's March, and the next you're staring down 30 June wondering what you've missed.
If you already work with a bookkeeper, you're ahead of most. But your bookkeeper can only do so much without the right information at the right time. This checklist covers exactly what they need from you, and when so you can close the year cleanly, meet your obligations, and walk into tax time without the headaches.
1. Payroll Finalisation via Single Touch Payroll (STP)
If you have employees, STP finalisation is one of your most time-sensitive EOFY tasks.
Single Touch Payroll is the system that reports your employees' wages, tax withheld, and super directly to the ATO each pay run. At the end of the financial year, you need to formally "finalise" each employee's STP data. This is what allows them to lodge their own tax return, because it locks in their income statement in myGov.
The deadline for most employers is 14 July.
To get this done, your bookkeeper will need confirmation that all pay runs for the year have been processed and recorded correctly, including any out-of-cycle payments, bonuses, or termination payments. If there are discrepancies, they need time to investigate and correct them before finalisation.
Don't wait until mid-July to flag issues. If something looks off in your payroll records, let your bookkeeper know now.
👉 Learn more about our payroll and bookkeeping services.
2. Superannuation — The 28 July Deadline
Super is one of the most commonly misunderstood EOFY obligations and getting it wrong has real consequences.
The Q4 superannuation payment (April to June) must be received by the superannuation fund by 28 July to count for this financial year. It's not enough to initiate the payment on 28 July, the funds need to have cleared.
A Q4 super payment received by the fund after 28 July won't be deductible until the following financial year and if it's late enough to trigger the Superannuation Guarantee Charge (SGC), you'll also be up for penalties and interest on top.
Your bookkeeper needs to know that all super payments for the year have been processed in time. If you're unsure whether your Q4 payment will make it, raise this with them before the end of June.
3. Get Your Documents Together
Your bookkeeper can't reconcile what they can't see. Before 30 June, pull together:
Bank statements for all business accounts covering the full financial year
Credit card statements used for business expenses
Receipts and invoices for any expenses not yet entered — especially anything bought in May or June
Loan statements if your business carries any finance
If you use accounting software like QuickBooks, Xero or MYOB, a lot of this may already be connected via bank feeds. But it's worth checking that nothing has fallen through the cracks, particularly for accounts that aren't linked.
4. Outstanding Invoices and Bills
Two things that are easy to overlook at EOFY:
Invoicing for work already done. If you are bookkeeping on an accrual basis, any completed work before 30 June that hasn't been invoiced yet, still belongs to the 2026 financial year . Get those invoices raised and dated correctly.
Bills not yet submitted. If you've received bills or incurred expenses that haven't been entered yet, get them to your bookkeeper before the books are closed for the year. A bill dated in June that gets entered in August is a problem, it either distorts this year's figures or requires a correction and you may miss out on valid tax deductions.
5. Personal Expenses — Keep Them Out
This one comes up every year, and it matters more than people realise.
Running personal expenses through your business, whether it's a family holiday coded as a conference, or a home improvement on the business card, isn't just a bookkeeping error. For company structures, it can trigger Division 7A of the Income Tax Assessment Act.
In plain terms, Division 7A is an ATO rule that treats payments or benefits from a private company to a director or shareholder as an unfranked dividend, even if they were never intended as one. That means they become taxable income, potentially at a higher rate, and without the benefit of franking credits.
The ATO pays close attention to this. If your bookkeeper flags something as a potential Div 7A issue, take it seriously.
Before EOFY, cast an eye over your transactions and flag anything to your bookkeeper that might be partly personal, travel, meals, equipment, subscriptions. It's much easier to deal with before the year closes than after a review.
6. Talk to Your Bookkeeper Before 30 June
This is the most important item on the list.
By the time July arrives, your bookkeeper is already managing EOFY workload for multiple clients. STP deadlines, super confirmations, and BAS lodgements are all landing at once. If you wait until July to raise questions or flag issues, you may find there's less time and flexibility to resolve them properly.
Getting in touch before 30 June means:
There's still time to correct errors before the year closes
Your super and payroll obligations can be confirmed as met
Any unusual transactions or potential compliance issues can be addressed before they become a problem
You're not starting tax time with open questions
A quick conversation now can save a lot of work later and reduce the chances of attracting attention from the ATO.
👉 Get in touch with our team before EOFY.
👉 Learn more about our bookkeeping services and accounting services.
TruAccounts provides bookkeeping, accounting, and compliance services to small businesses across Melbourne and Australia-wide. If you'd like to make sure your EOFY obligations are covered, we'd love to hear from you.