- Study and training loans – what’s new6 Dec 2024
- End-of-year office closure and systems availability6 Dec 2024
- Serious Financial Crime Taskforce intelligence bulletin – targeting fraud in GST refunds5 Dec 2024
- ATO cracking down on GST fraud5 Dec 2024
- Withholding changes when buying and selling property3 Dec 2024
- Withholding changes when buying and selling property3 Dec 2024
- Study loan indexation change3 Dec 2024
- Prepare to lodge your SAR by 28 February27 Nov 2024
- Prepare to lodge your quarterly January TBAR26 Nov 2024
- Is your business getting bigger?15 Nov 2024
- Key changes to Online services for agents12 Nov 2024
- myGovID is now myID12 Nov 2024
Our Solutions For Your Practice
If you’re looking for spreadsheets, working papers, templates and much more for your accounting practice, you’ve come to the right place.
Accountants Desktop was established and developed in an accounting practice and continues to work closely in that environment. We know what practices need and have been providing solutions to the profession since 2008.
Our web-based collection of solutions to your needs was specifically created for tax and accounting professionals in public practice. Importantly, in a time characterised by unprecedented data breaches, we do not hold any client data. All of our content is downloaded to your system for data entry and saved there.
Take a quick tour of our site to the right. Expand the window to a full screen for a closer look. And check out our samples, watch the videos on our YouTube channel and see what our users say about us below.
Access all of our content with an annual subscription (can be paid monthly) or browse through our packages for sale below and purchase just what you need.
Please note: To use our calculators, you must have the desktop version of Excel. Our spreadsheets are not compatible with the cloud-based version of Excel, nor Excel for Mac, nor Google Sheets.
30 Day Money Back Guarantee
Accountants Desktop Features
Excel Templates
Get access to hundreds of Excel templates for tax, accounting and practice management calculations as well as our own unique JobPaper collection of workbooks which take the work out of workpapers.
Forms
Download dozens of checklists for practice workflow, job procedures and client communication. Customise these Microsoft Word forms to suit the individual needs of your practice.
Library
Browse through our comprehensive list of links to the ATO and other websites to quickly find technical reference material.
Rates
Find any tax rate or threshold you need in our comprehensive list of current and prior years rates.
ATO News
Keep up to date with, or search our list for, ATO emails circulated regularly to tax practitioners. We focus on topics of interest to small and medium practices
Template Letters
Make use of our extensive range of templates for your outgoing emails and letters. Letters are in Microsoft Word format and can be downloaded and customised as necessary.
Why Use Accountants Desktop?
- Reduce time spent on client work
- Maintain or improve quality control
- Consistency across your practice
- Predictable and reliable outcomes
- Guide new or inexperienced staff
- Free up partner & manager time
- “Flying start” for new practitioners
- Broad range of resources to use
- Timely updates to existing content
- New content regularly added
Recent Updates
Dividend Calculations 2024
Updated – User Request
New columns have been added to this calculation to enable identification of franking credits that are not claimable under the holding period rule. You have the option of showing or hiding these new columns. Also enter franking credits received through partnerships and trusts to compare the client’s total franking credits with the small shareholder exemption threshold. Data entry has been streamlined to assume that all dividends qualify for the exemption and simply enter holding dates for the exception(s) to the rule.
Note: this calculator is not compatible with Excel versions 2021 and prior.
Calculations/2024/Dividend Calculations
Professionals Profit
The ATO is watching your professional clients to see if they comply with the guidelines in PCG 2021/4 when allocating profits to individual practitioners. These guidelines apply to professional firms which include, but are not limited to, accounting, architecture, engineering, financial services, law, medicine and management consulting.
Direct quotes from the guidelines include –
- Para 25 – they “expect you to annually assess your eligibility to apply this Guideline” and “If you want to apply this Guideline, we expect you to document your assessment of, and also to review, your eligibility as your business or arrangement changes.”
- Para 107 – they will “”monitor outcomes over a period of time”
- Para 111 – they “may fact-check your assessment of your profit allocation. If you are unable to provide evidence to support your assessment, we may undertake further compliance activity.”
This new calculator will help you to assess any risk associated with profit allocations among your professional clients. The important features of this workbook include –
- It has a procedures checklist to assist with the process and to check on the client’s eligibility to apply the guidelines;
- You can do an actual risk assessment for 2024;
- And if any issues are found, you can project an assessment for 2025 with a view to making adjustments to future allocations of profit;
- You can use just one file to assess the risk for any number of practitioners within the same firm, from one to all;
- Automatic calculations are performed for income tax, FBT and superannuation contributions tax;
- For guidance, the file includes a sample assessment showing how to enter data for most situations; and
- You can copy suggested text explaining the guidelines and the client’s risk rating and paste it into an outgoing email or letter to your client.
Click here to see a video demonstration of this calculation.
This calculator cannot be used for the old guidelines suspended in 2017.
Calculations/2024/Professional Profits
Excel Help
There is a new menu item in our Calculations module with specific help on the following procedures which will help you get the most out of using our Excel files –
- Embedding PDF documents into your file;
- Macros (downloading and using our files);
- Using multiple windows;
- Pasting or importing Excel data;
- Pasting screen shots;
- Printing our files;
- Using tables in JobPaper files; and
- Checking your version of Excel.
Calculations/About Using Excel
Rental Properties
There are 2 new items with ATO information in the Library module providing quick answers to common questions about rental property deductions.
Capital Allowances vs Capital Works 2024
Browse through the long list of assets in Table 3 of the ATO’s 2024 rental property guide to determine if you should claim depreciation or a capital works deduction. For depreciable items you can also see their effective life.Library/Rental Properties/Capital Allowances vs Capital Works 2024
Repair or Capital 2024
View the ATOs quick reference guide covering repairs, maintenance and capital expenditure on rental properties. See common scenarios, likely treatment and an example of the following –- Repairs
- Maintenance
- Depreciation
- Second hand depreciating assets
- Improvements
- Initial repairs
Library/Rental Properties/Repair or Capital 2024
Lodgement Dashboards For 2024
These lodgement dashboards are now available for download. Using our dashboards will allow you to import a lodgement report from the ATO and matching data from your practice management system to produce an interactive dashboard capable of viewing data with multiple filters. You have a choice of up to 3 user-defined reporting levels. Click here to see a video demonstration of these files.
Here is a summary of the features in each file –
Returns
- All returns regardless of status
- A summary by entity type
- Lodgement performance to date
- A due date analysis
- Summary of prior 3 years
- Lodgements ranked by your choice
Activity Statements
- All outstanding activity statements
- Not lodged by entity type
- Not lodged by period
- Not lodged due dates
- Top 20 clients
- Not lodged ranked by your choice
Cashflow Forecasts – Weekly
User request
Use this cashflow forecast to project weekly receipts and payments over a 12 month period. Along with our monthly version, their features include –
- Commence the forecast in any month or week based on user input;
- Automatic calculation of GST owing to the ATO;
- Minimum cash balance warning;
- Input totals for actual receipts and payments at the end of each month or week to automatically update forecasts of closing cash balances in future periods;
- KPIs including total net cash received and minimum, maximum and average cash balances over the period are displayed at the top of the sheet for easy reference; and
- Handy graphs illustrating Net Cash Flow and Cash Balance for each month or week.
Calculations/Budgets & Projections/Cashflow Forecast
Personal Tax Returns
Records Checklists
New records checklists for 2024 returns have now been uploaded to Forms. One constant challenge when preparing personal returns is getting all of the information you need up front. Delays in completing returns breeds inefficiency, increases the time you spend on the job and ultimately affects cashflow. There are two versions of these checklists.
A short one page version is a checklist that the client can use to either get ready for their meeting with you or to be reminded of the information you need if there will be no meeting. Send this checklist to your clients before the job commences to ensure that there are no missing records.
The longer six page version is a fillable form that will allow the client to record all relevant information and send it to you without the need for a formal meeting. Be selective about which clients receive this longer version.
Interview Notes
This form will serve as a checklist of the items to be considered when you prepare a personal return face to face. One important use of this form is to ask the client to complete the “income” section of the form, with a Yes or No answer, while they wait in reception for your meeting. This will remind them of income they may have received and importantly be confirmation of their instructions to you about their income for the preparation of their return.
All forms are available for download from our site as either a Microsoft Word document, to allow you to edit the form to suit the particular needs of your practice, or as a PDF document.
Forms
Asset Acquisition
Change to layout. All calculations can now be viewed on one screen.
Calculations/2024/Asset Acquisition
Property Investment Analysis
New Layout New Video
Analyse a proposed rental property acquisition by your client and advise on –
- Pre and post tax cashflow
- Weekly cost to the client for affordability
- Gross and net rental yield
- Equity at any point in the analysis period
- Investment return over the ownership period (whether still held or sold)
Or in the case of a negatively-geared property, use hypothetical information to profile an ideal property to match the client’s excess cashflow. Tax rates have been updated for the 2025 financial year.
Calculations/Budgets & Projections/Property Investment Analysis
PAYG Withholding Variations
This handy calculator will help you estimate rental income and deductions, interest on investment loans, motor vehicle expenses and depreciation on related assets for 2025 for a PAYG withholding variation. This year, all calculations are now in this one file.
Calculations/2025/PAYG Withholding Variations
Division 7A Loans
You can now start using this calculator part way through the term of the loan by entering a start year and balance at the beginning of that year. This update will help users move existing loans across from a different calculator.
Calculations/Division 7A Loans
Trust Distributions
Save precious time and use our trust distribution workbook for your discretionary trust distributions for the year ended 30 June 2024.
Using projected net (taxable) income for the year, you can view the marginal tax rates and income available at those rates for each beneficiary to make tax-effective distributions. The worksheet will convert those taxable distributions to accounting distributions for the trustee resolution. The resolution forms part of this workbook.
And when the time comes to prepare the trust tax return, you can enter actual accounting distributions to calculate the individual (taxable) amounts to be shown at each return label for the beneficiaries on the trust return.
Calculations/2024/Trust Distributions
Hire Purchase Calculators – Video
Click here to view an updated video on these calculators.
Hire Purchase Calculators
All HP calculators are no longer date dependant and have been moved to Calculations/Financial.
The journal worksheet in our HP schedules now includes a journal for acquisition of the asset.
Calculations/Financial
FBT JobPapers for 2024
The 2024 version of our working paper file for FBT jobs is now available for download. Updates to the calculator this year include –
- Protection over all sheets has been minimised to include just our formulas and labels or text, giving you more flexibility in adding your own data or comments;
- You can now import Excel or CSV data to any unprotected cell in this workbook with just a few clicks on that option in the Accountants menu, consistent with our other JobPaper files;
- A new Table group in the Accountants menu now allows you to work better with our tables. Options in this group include insert or delete multiple rows, sort columns and fill down data (the latter can also be performed outside tables);
- Insert pictures, shapes, icons or screen shots in all sheets to make it easier for you to follow or review your work;
- New items in the Tools menu group include clear formats and fit or reset column widths to allow more flexibility in managing your data; and
- If you need help or would like to provide feedback, click on the Email Support button in the Tools group to open a new email using your default email program and our address and the exact file name/version will be inserted in your email.
And just a reminder that this JobPaper can be used for all employer types (taxable, exempt or rebatable) and has worksheets to calculate all benefits to be shown on the FBT return form.
You can access a video on this calculator at Main Menu/Videos or click on this link to view it on our YouTube channel.
Calculations/2024/JobPapers/FBT
Hire Purchase Calculators (2023 and later)
With the exception of the Hire Purchase Summary and Hire Purchase Payout calculators, each calculator can now be used for any contract date on or before the year end of that calculator. e.g. For a contract beginning on 15/02/19 you can now use the 2023 or 2024 calculator. Previously you had to navigate back to the file for the financial year during which the contract began (2019 in our example). The Journal worksheet now reconciles journals with the schedule.
Calculations/2023 & 2024/Hire Purchase etc
Tax Planning 2024 New
Our tax planning workbook for 2024 is now available for download. With this calculator you can –
- Update YTD profit to include missing items and to exclude non P&L items.
- Project YTD profit to the end of the financial year using one of three options.
- Make tax reconciliation adjustments to that projected profit to calculate taxable/net income.
- Explore tax planning opportunities and calculate tax payable by all entities and individuals in the client group.
- Account for tax on deductible payments by client to associated entities or individuals.
- Account for contributions tax and Division 293 tax on deductible super contributions where applicable.
- For discretionary trusts, view the marginal tax rate for beneficiaries and income available at that rate.
- Calculate tax saved or deferred from tax planning.
For a demonstration of this calculator in action go to the video on our YouTube channel. Make sure that your quality setting in YouTube is HD.
Calculations/2024/Tax Planning
BAS JobPapers 2024 Updated
The formulas and protection have been removed from the opening balance cells in the reconciliation sections for GST and Payroll to enable use of this working paper part-way through the year and to allow the entry of an opening balance for clients with a quarterly cycle at the quarterly section (previously had to enter at the July sheet).
Calculations/2024/JobPapers BAS
Watch Our Videos
The first video takes you on a tour of our site and shows you what we offer.
The remaining three videos preview a day in the life of 3 Accountants Desktop users. Roger, partner, Jane, senior accountant and Kim, personal assistant show how they use Accountants Desktop in their work on a typical day.
Site Tour
Roger
Partner
Jane
Senior Accountant
Kim
Personal Assistant
To see all of our videos
To access sample content
What people say about Accountants Desktop
Subscription Levels
1 – 5 Users
$1,295 PA
Effective cost $22 per user
per month with 5 users
OR
$119 PM
Minimum 12 months
All prices include GST
6 – 10 Users
$1,995 PA
Effective cost $17 per user
per month with 10 users
OR
$183 PM
Minimum 12 months
All prices include GST
11 – 15 Users
$2,495 PA
Effective cost $14 per user
per month with 15 users
OR
$229 PM
Minimum 12 months
All prices include GST
16 – 20 Users
$2,795 PA
Effective cost $12 per user
per month with 20 users
OR
$256 PM
Minimum 12 months
All prices include GST
Larger Plans
We accept Mastercard, Visa, Diners Club and American Express
Please note: To use our calculators, you must have the desktop version of Excel.
Our spreadsheets are not compatible with the cloud-based version of Excel, or Excel for Mac, or Google Sheets.
Calculation Packages For Sale
Purchase an individual product to access only the features you need.
If you purchase any calculation package below, you will have unlimited use of the files within your practice and you will receive all subsequent updates to any files included in that package as well as any new calculations added after your purchase.
-
Annual Accounts For 2024
$395.00 inc GST -
BAS 2025
$295.00 inc GST -
Capital Gains Tax 2024 and 2023
$395.00 inc GST -
Division 7A Unsecured Loans 2024
$395.00 inc GST -
FBT 2024
$395.00 inc GST -
Hire Purchase Schedules (non-expiring)
$195.00 inc GST -
Individual Return For 2024
$295.00 inc GST -
Lodgement Dashboards 2024
$395.00 inc GST -
PAYG, GST & FBT Instalment Variations For 2024
$295.00 inc GST
Try out Accountants Desktop
Just fill in the form below and you will get access to our samples page with free downloads.
"*" indicates required fields
(02) 9542 4655
info@accountantsdesktop.com.au
PO BOX 507 Sutherland NSW 1499