Accounting support built for tradies & construction.

In practice

Where trade businesses actually get caught

TPAR is the one that surprises people. If your business provides building and construction services and you pay contractors, you generally have to report those payments in a Taxable Payments Annual Report, due by 28th August each year. It catches businesses that think of themselves as small — two or three subbies is enough. The report is built from payment records across the whole year, so a file that is clean in July is a non-event in August, and a file that is not becomes a scramble.

Worker classification is the expensive one. Having an ABN and sending invoices does not make someone a contractor; the classification turns on the contractual rights and how the arrangement actually operates — control, delegation, who carries commercial risk, who supplies the significant equipment. And even a genuine contractor paid wholly or principally for their labour is generally owed super as if they were an employee. That obligation accumulates quietly, and the super guarantee charge that follows a shortfall is not deductible.

The third is vehicles and tools. These are real deductions, but they are evidence-based ones. A logbook kept properly supports a business-use percentage for years; a guess supports nothing. The same applies to tools and equipment — the invoice, the date, and whether the item was financed all change the treatment.

Beyond compliance, the question most trade owners cannot answer is which jobs made money. Revenue by month tells you the business was busy. Costs allocated to jobs — labour, materials, subcontractors, vehicle time — tell you whether being busy was worth it, and whether the way you quote is still right.