Bookkeeping is the foundation every other engagement sits on. For New Zealand firms, the period close is also where GST lives: transactions have to be coded correctly, bank and credit card accounts reconciled, payroll liabilities (PAYE, KiwiSaver, ESCT) checked against IRD, and the GST101A reviewed before anything is filed through myIR. Get the bookkeeping right and the GST return more or less prepares itself. Get it wrong and you are chasing miscoded transactions, unexplained variances, and last-minute receipts on the day the return is due.
The risk is rarely the work itself. It is consistency. When the process lives in one person’s head, steps get skipped, GST coding drifts, and a junior covering for a sick colleague has no idea what “done” looks like. A repeatable workflow turns the close into the same predictable sequence every period, so a manager can review the GST return knowing the reconciliations underneath it were actually completed, not assumed.
When to run it
Most NZ firms run bookkeeping monthly, with GST filing aligned to the client’s registered period (monthly, two-monthly, or six-monthly). Tie the cadence to each client’s GST frequency so the return is ready when it is due, not scrambled together afterwards. A bookkeeper usually owns the day-to-day coding and reconciliations, with a senior or manager reviewing the trial balance and signing off the GST101A before submission.
How to run it in Tidyflow
Set this up once as a reusable job template where each step from the checklist becomes a subtask your team ticks off, then attach a recurring schedule so the job regenerates every GST period without anyone remembering to create it. The four client requests become items your client completes in the client portal: missing receipts, unclear transaction details, new loans or assets, and final GST approval all flow back in one place instead of scattered email threads. Connect Xero or MYOB through integrations so transaction data and reconciliations stay in sync, and keep supporting documents attached to the job so the reviewer has everything in front of them at sign-off.
Common pitfalls
- Filing the GST101A before the bank reconciliations are finished, so output and input tax do not actually tie back to reconciled balances.
- Letting GST coding drift on recurring transactions (subscriptions, imports, zero-rated supplies) instead of reviewing the categorisation each period.
- Skipping the PAYE, KiwiSaver, and ESCT check, then discovering the payroll liabilities owing to IRD do not match the payroll system.
- Chasing missing receipts by email at the last minute rather than sending the request early through the portal.
- Not locking the period after finalising, so a later edit silently changes a return you have already filed.