GST and Australian tax invoices
What has to be on an ATO-compliant tax invoice, and where those fields live.
General information, not tax advice. For your own situation, talk to your accountant or check ato.gov.au.
Do you charge GST?
You must register for GST once your business turns over $75,000 or more in a 12-month period, and you can register voluntarily below that. Once registered, you generally add 10% to Australian sales and issue tax invoices rather than plain invoices. If you're not registered, you don't charge GST and the document is an “invoice”, not a “tax invoice” — the wording matters.
What a valid tax invoice needs
For sales of $82.50 including GST or more, the ATO requires the words “Tax invoice”, your business name, your ABN, the issue date, a description of what you sold, the GST amount (or a statement that the total includes GST), and the total price.
Where to set this up
Your business name, ABN and invoice name live in your studio profile, and flow onto every invoice you issue — set them once. See setting up your brand.
Two mistakes cause real problems: calling a document a tax invoice when you're not registered for GST, and charging GST when you shouldn't. Both are worth getting right before you send the first one.
At BAS time
The bookkeeping export gives your accountant the transaction list in a format they can work from, rather than a folder of PDFs.