Tracking compliance and lodgment deadlines

Set up Finye's compliance engine to track every BAS, IAS, income tax return and ASIC review, with due dates and a practice-wide dashboard.

Missing a lodgment deadline is one of the few mistakes in an accounting practice that can cost a client real money in penalties and cost you their trust. Finye's compliance engine keeps every Australian lodgment obligation in one place, calculates the due date for each one, and shows you the whole practice at a glance so nothing slips past the ATO or ASIC deadline.

This guide walks through setting up obligations for your clients, understanding how Finye works out due dates, and using the compliance dashboard to stay ahead of the financial year.

What the compliance engine tracks

Finye models the recurring lodgments an Australian practice is responsible for, including:

BAS (Business Activity Statements) on monthly or quarterly cycles
IAS (Instalment Activity Statements)
Income tax returns for companies, trusts, partnerships, individuals and SMSFs
ASIC annual reviews tied to a company's review date

Each obligation is attached to a client, carries a period (for example, the September quarter), and has a due date that Finye calculates for you based on the obligation type and reporting cycle.

Setting up obligations for a client

Obligations live on each client record so you can see exactly what a given entity is responsible for. To add them:

Open the client from your client list and go to the Compliance tab on their record.
Choose Add obligation and select the obligation type (BAS, IAS, income tax return or ASIC review).
Set the reporting cycle where relevant. For a BAS, choose monthly or quarterly so Finye knows how many periods to generate across the year.
Confirm the entity type. Because tax return due dates differ between a company, trust, individual and SMSF, Finye uses the client's entity type to apply the right rule.
Save. Finye creates the obligation and works out the due date for the current and upcoming periods.

Set this up once when you onboard a client and the obligations keep rolling forward each period without you re-entering them. If you are still building out a client's profile, the guide on adding clients and contacts covers getting the entity type and details right first, which the compliance engine relies on.

How Finye calculates due dates

Rather than asking you to key in every deadline, Finye applies the standard Australian due-date rules to each obligation:

Activity statements

Quarterly BAS and IAS due dates are derived from the end of each quarter, with the lodgment concession applied where the obligation is lodged through your practice. Monthly activity statements roll to the following month's due date.

Income tax returns

Tax return due dates follow the entity type and the lodgment program, so a company return and an individual return attached to the same group will show different deadlines.

ASIC reviews

Annual review obligations are anchored to the company's review date so the deadline tracks each year automatically.

If a particular client has a non-standard deadline, you can adjust the due date on the individual obligation so the dashboard reflects reality.

Working the compliance dashboard

The compliance dashboard is your practice-wide view of what is coming due. Use it as a weekly rhythm rather than a once-a-quarter scramble:

Open Compliance from the main navigation to see every obligation across all clients in one list.
Scan the upcoming and overdue groupings. Obligations approaching their due date are surfaced first so you can prioritise the work.
Filter by obligation type or client when you want to focus, for example, on every September-quarter BAS in one pass.
Drill into a client's Compliance tab from the dashboard to see only their obligations and history.

Reviewing the dashboard at the start of each week, and again in the lead-up to the quarterly BAS deadlines, gives the whole team a shared picture of where things stand.

Turning obligations into work

Knowing a BAS is due is only half the job; someone has to prepare and lodge it. Finye is designed so compliance tracking feeds into your day-to-day workflow. Pair the compliance engine with recurring work items so each obligation has an owner, a status and a checklist, and the team can track progress from to-do through to lodged. The guide on recurring jobs and projects shows how to template work like quarterly BAS so the job is created automatically alongside the obligation.

A practical routine

To get the most from the compliance engine:

During onboarding, add every obligation the client is responsible for, so nothing is missing from the first cycle.
Each week, review the dashboard and assign upcoming obligations to the right staff member.
Before each deadline, filter to that obligation type and confirm every client is on track or already lodged.
After the financial year rolls over in July, check that returns and reviews have stepped forward to the new period.

Set up well, the compliance engine turns lodgment deadlines from a source of stress into a routine you can rely on, and gives principals confidence that no client's BAS, IAS, tax return or ASIC review is going to be missed.