Guidance, not advice. General information, not financial or tax advice. As at May 2026. For GST, BAS and income-tax rules see the tax section; talk to your accountant about your own setup.
Clean money admin comes down to three things: a dedicated business account, a clean split between business and personal money, and a simple bookkeeping routine that hands tidy records to your accountant at year-end.
The business transaction account
This is your everyday operating account — income lands here, expenses are paid from here. If you trade through a partnership, company or trust you must have a separate bank account for tax purposes; a sole trader isn't strictly required to but is strongly encouraged to. To open one a bank usually wants your business name and address, your ABN (or ACN), your industry, and ID for each owner, partner or director. Compare accounts on fees and limits (monthly fee, transaction fees, ATM access, minimum balance), digital features (app quality, notifications, and bank feeds into your accounting software), and whether you can easily add a second account to set tax aside — moving a percentage of every payment into a separate tax/GST account is the single habit that prevents a year-end shock (see PAYG Instalments).
Separating business and personal
Even when it isn't legally required, running everything through the business account makes performance and tax far easier and unlocks integrated reporting and software feeds. Three rules of thumb: funnel all business income into the business account (not your personal one); pay business expenses from that account or a linked card; and take regular owner's drawings across to your personal account rather than paying personal costs straight from the business — that keeps the line clean.
Bookkeeping basics
Bookkeeping is just recording money in and out and checking it against your bank statements so the numbers stay right. The core pieces: a chart of accounts (categories for income, expenses, assets, liabilities and equity — start lean, add detail as you grow); recording every transaction (sales, expenses, asset purchases, loan repayments, owner drawings), ideally in software rather than a manual spreadsheet; and a routine:
- Daily/weekly — record income and expenses, send and chase invoices, snap or upload receipts.
- Monthly — reconcile the bank accounts, run a basic profit-and-loss, check upcoming bills and tax.
- Quarterly — review cash flow and your tax set-asides (GST/BAS, income tax) and adjust the percentage you're putting aside.
Reconciliation
Reconciling means comparing your records to the bank statement so they match — at least monthly, more often with bank feeds. Match each bank transaction to an entry (date, amount, description), investigate the differences (missing entries, duplicates, bank fees, timing), adjust, and note anything unusual for your accountant. Automation (bank feeds, rules) cuts the data entry but a human still needs to review and approve the matches (see Record-Keeping).
Accounting software (a category, not a verdict)
Xero, MYOB and QuickBooks Online are three widely-used cloud platforms for Australian small businesses — all cloud-based and mobile, all covering invoicing, bank feeds, reporting and integrations. The honest position is there's no single "best": ask your accountant or bookkeeper which fits your size, trade and existing workflow, and treat the choice as revisitable rather than permanent. The same goes for the job-management software that often feeds it.
What to give your accountant
A smooth year-end comes from a tidy system: access to your accounting file (or up-to-date, reconciled spreadsheets with a clean chart of accounts), bank statements for all business accounts including the savings/tax account, details of any loans or finance, and the key supporting documents (large asset purchases, finance contracts, payroll summaries, anything unusual). Tidy bookkeeping plus separate banking is what makes the handover quick and the bill smaller (see Working with an Accountant).
Common mistakes
- Running business income through a personal account and untangling it at tax time.
- Never setting money aside for GST and income tax, then being caught short.
- Leaving reconciliation until year-end instead of monthly.
- Treating cloud accounting as a backup (it isn't — see Backing Up Your Business).
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