The July to September quarter just ended for nobody, because in a venue the quarter never feels like it ends. But the ATO's calendar does not care about your roster: the Quarter 1 BAS for 2026-27 covers 1 July to 30 September 2026, and the standard due date is 28 October 2026.
Two housekeeping notes before the checklist. First, your exact date can differ: many businesses that lodge online through ATO online services see a later concession date on the statement itself (often mid November), and lodging through a registered agent generally pushes it later again, commonly 25 November for this quarter. The date displayed in ATO online services on your actual statement is the one that counts, so check it there rather than trusting any blog, this one included. Second, this article is general guidance for getting organised, not tax advice; your BAS agent or accountant is the right person for anything specific to your situation.
What actually goes into a venue's BAS
For most hospitality, retail and trade businesses, the quarterly BAS is four things: the GST you collected on sales, the GST credits on what you bought, the PAYG you withheld from wages, and possibly a PAYG income instalment. Everything in the checklist below exists to make those four numbers true.
The checklist
1. Sales and GST collected
Reconcile every register day in the quarter. Gaps in the takings usually mean a day that never synced, and that becomes a GST error.
Check GST-free items are actually coded GST-free. In food retail especially, miscoded items quietly inflate or understate your GST collected.
Include every revenue stream: marketplace orders, function deposits you have earned, gift cards redeemed (not sold), venue hire. If money reached you for goods or services this quarter, it belongs in G1.
Marketplace platforms: report the full sale as income, and treat commissions as an expense with their own GST credit. Netting them off is one of the most common venue BAS mistakes.
2. Purchases and GST credits
Chase the missing invoices now: the produce supplier who texts photos, the equipment bought on a personal card, the cash and carry runs. No tax invoice, no credit.
Separate GST-free purchases (much fresh food, some supplier charges) from taxable ones. Claiming credits on GST-free stock is the mirror image of the coding error above.
Big purchases (equipment, fit-out) deserve a second look: the GST credit is worth real money and the invoice is worth filing properly.
3. Wages and PAYG withholding
Reconcile total gross wages and total tax withheld for the quarter against your payroll reports. These become W1 and W2 on the statement.
Confirm every pay run was reported through Single Touch Payroll. If a run failed to report, fix it before you lodge, not after.
Contractors are not wages, but some contractor payments carry their own withholding rules; if you are unsure about one, ask your agent this week rather than in the last week of October.
4. Super: the rules changed this quarter
This is the one that catches venues out this year. From 1 July 2026, Payday Super applies: super guarantee (now 12 percent) must reach each employee's fund within 7 business days of every payday. The old quarterly catch-up deadline is gone. That means super is no longer a BAS-time task, but BAS time is the right moment to audit it: pull the quarter's pay runs and confirm every one has super actually landed in the fund, not just calculated. Late super now compounds pay run by pay run, and the make-good process is painful.
5. Reconcile, lodge, pay
Bank reconciliation complete to 30 September, every account, including the one only used for the coffee machine lease.
Compare this BAS to last quarter's. A number that moved a lot should have a reason you can say out loud.
Lodge even if you cannot pay in full. Lodging on time avoids the failure-to-lodge penalty, and payment plans exist; silence is the expensive option.
The one-hour version
If your systems are in decent shape, the whole exercise is: reconcile takings, chase five invoices, run two payroll reports, audit the quarter's super, lodge. The venues that suffer in October are the ones assembling three months of paper in a weekend. The venues that do not are the ones whose till, roster and books already agree with each other, which is, not coincidentally, the argument for running them in one system: on Allvio, payroll, sales and finance live in the same system, so the figures above come from one place and BAS preparation starts reconciled instead of ending there. The same applies outside hospitality: for a crew on the tools, job management software that keeps quotes, invoices and the paperwork together is the difference between a one-hour BAS and a lost weekend.
Make next quarter's BAS the one-hour version
When the till, the roster and the books are one system, the quarter reconciles itself as you go. Try it through Q2 and see what late January feels like.
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FAQs
When is the Q1 BAS due in 2026?
The standard due date for the July to September 2026 quarter is 28 October 2026. Online lodgers often see a later concession date on their statement in ATO online services, and registered agents generally have until around 25 November for this quarter. The date shown on your own statement in ATO online services is the one to follow.
What do I need before lodging a BAS?
Reconciled sales for the quarter with GST coding checked, tax invoices for the purchases you are claiming credits on, payroll totals for gross wages and tax withheld, confirmation every pay run reported through Single Touch Payroll, and a completed bank reconciliation to 30 September. If super or contractor payments raise questions, ask a registered agent before lodging.
Can my POS data prepare my BAS?
Largely, yes. If your POS, payroll and accounting draw from the same system, your sales, GST and wage figures arrive already reconciled, and BAS preparation becomes review rather than assembly. If they are separate tools, the reconciliation between them is exactly where most BAS errors and most of the wasted hours live.