Free for Australian tax practices
Four Excel working papers — individual, company, trust and partnership — laid out by return item, with a reference column for every figure, a review-points sheet and a bridge to the return labels. Download them, no sign-up.
Made by BeforeMay. These are the same blank files our software fills from a client’s documents; you do not need the software to use them.
Individuals and sole traders · Excel .xlsx
One tab per group of return items, a one-page tax summary to review from, and a bridge sheet that maps every figure to its return label. Extra rental-property and CGT sheets ship hidden — unhide one when a client has a second property or a share disposal.
Tabs: Index · Tax summary · Review points · Salary & wages · Interest · Dividends · Distributions · Business schedule · CGT events · Capital gains summary · Investment register · Foreign income · Rental summary · Rental property · Deductions D1–D15 · Losses · Income tests, spouse & MLS · Return labels
Private companies · Excel .xlsx
Built from the trial balance out: a cashbook per bank account, year-end journals, and the reconciliation from accounting profit to taxable income. The franking account, Division 7A loans and the income tax provision each have their own schedule.
Tabs: Index · Key figures & integrity checks · Review points · Trial balance · Tax calculation · Franking account · Div 7A loans · Income tax rec · BAS & GST rec · Dividends paid · Cashbook · Investment income · Dividends · Fund distributions · CGT summary · Cost base & disposals · Losses · Creditors & accruals · Manual journals · Return labels
Discretionary and unit trusts · Excel .xlsx
The same trial-balance spine as the company file, ending in a distribution statement rather than a tax calculation, so the net income and each beneficiary's share are worked in one place and carried to the return labels.
Tabs: Index · Key figures & integrity checks · Review points · Trial balance · Tax calculation · Distribution statement · Cashbook · Investment income · Dividends · Fund distributions · CGT summary · Cost base & disposals · Losses · Creditors & accruals · Manual journals · Return labels
Partnerships · Excel .xlsx
The trust layout with the partnership's distribution statement: net income worked from the books, then split to each partner's share and carried to the return labels.
Tabs: Index · Key figures & integrity checks · Review points · Trial balance · Tax calculation · Distribution statement · Cashbook · Investment income · Dividends · Fund distributions · CGT summary · Cost base & disposals · Creditors & accruals · Manual journals · Return labels
A working paper is judged at review, not at preparation. The question a partner asks of every figure is where it came from, and the layout either answers that in one step or sends them back to the source documents. These five conventions are the ones the templates are built around, and they are worth keeping whatever file you use.
Each schedule carries a column for the source document — the statement, the contract note, the payment summary. A reviewer who can get from a figure to its page in one step is reviewing; one who cannot is re-preparing.
Tabs are named by return item, so the file and the return read in the same order. A reviewer looking at a label on the return knows which tab built it without asking.
A return-labels sheet lists every label the return needs and which schedule it comes from. Keying the return becomes copying from one sheet, and a label with no schedule behind it stands out.
A review-points sheet keeps the open questions — to the client, to the partner — beside the figures they are about, with the answer recorded when it arrives. The query does not live in someone's inbox.
The summary sheets carry a prior-year column. Most errors a reviewer catches are a figure that moved when it should not have, or did not move when it should.
Why working papers come back from review, and what that costs a practice in the busy months, is its own post on the blog.
BeforeMay reads a client’s documents and fills this working paper: each figure treated, placed on its schedule and linked back to the page it came from. A figure no document supports is written as outstanding rather than estimated, and the open questions land on the review-points sheet for you to answer. You review and sign; the return is still yours.
The fairest test is one case: take a return you have already finished, put the same documents in, and compare the file you get back with the one you made. Signing up gives you A$99 of free credit to do it with.
The file that stands between a client’s documents and their return: each figure on the return, how it was arrived at, and the document it came from. The return is what you lodge; the working paper is what you, a reviewer or the ATO read to see why each figure is what it is.
Yes. No account, no email address, no trial — the links above download the files directly. Use them for your own clients.
No. They are ordinary .xlsx workbooks with no macros, and they open in Excel, Google Sheets, Numbers or LibreOffice. The summary and return-label sheets are formulas over the schedules, so a figure entered once flows through to both.
The year is on the index sheet of each file. The layout itself does not change much year to year; when a return item is added or moved, the template changes with it and this page links the new one.
Yes, the same files, byte for byte. When BeforeMay builds a working paper from a client’s documents, this is the layout it fills — so downloading one is also the quickest way to see what you would get back.
It is your copy — add tabs, rename columns, put your firm’s name on it. If you would rather keep your own layout entirely, BeforeMay can fill a firm’s existing template instead of ours.
Comparing tools rather than templates? The four different products sold as AI tax software in Australia, and what none of them can do, are on their own page. The free tax calculators use current ATO rates.