EOFY 2026 Checklist for Sole Traders: 12 Things to Do Before 30 June

Pull together every invoice you issued in FY2025–26 and confirm it is recorded. Cross-check your bank statements against your records — the ATO pre-fills tax returns with data from your bank, payment platforms (Stripe, Square, PayPal), and income-reporting apps. If there are invoices missing from your records or amounts that do not match, address them now rather than at lodgement time. SAB Account AI keeps your invoices in one place with status tracking — now is the time to ensure every issued invoice shows as either paid, pending, or appropriately written off.

If you have outstanding invoices from clients you genuinely cannot recover — clients who have gone silent, gone into liquidation, or made clear they will not pay — you can write off those debts before 30 June and claim them as a deduction. For GST-registered businesses, writing off a bad debt also allows you to claim back the GST you already remitted to the ATO on that invoice. To qualify, the debt must be genuinely irrecoverable, not just slow. Make a written record of why you believe the debt is bad, and formally write it off in your accounts before 30 June.

The $20,000 instant asset write-off is one of the most valuable EOFY actions available to small businesses, and it has a hard deadline. Assets must be first used or installed ready for use by midnight on 30 June 2026. This covers computers, phones, tools, equipment, vehicles under $69,674, and most depreciating business assets. Each individual asset must cost under $20,000 — but there is no limit on the number of qualifying assets you can claim. Read our full guide on the $20,000 instant asset write-off for the detail on what qualifies and what the deadline really requires.

As a sole trader, you can contribute to your own super fund and claim it as a tax deduction — one of the most tax-effective moves available to self-employed Australians. The concessional contributions cap for FY2025–26 is $30,000 (including employer contributions if you have other employment). To claim the deduction, the contribution must be received by your fund before 30 June — allow at least 2–3 business days for processing — and you must lodge a Notice of Intent to Claim a Deduction with your fund before you lodge your tax return. This is the key step people forget: without the notice, the deduction is lost.

The ATO has specifically flagged work from home claims as a compliance focus for FY2026 tax returns. Under the fixed rate method (67 cents per hour), you must have a record of every single hour worked from home across the full financial year. The ATO no longer accepts four-week sample diaries extrapolated to the full year — it must be a full-year log. This applies from 1 July 2025 onwards. If you have been logging hours consistently, ensure your records are complete and cover the whole period. If you have not been logging, start now and reconstruct what you reasonably can from calendar entries, email records, and work deliverables — but be accurate, not optimistic.

If you claim vehicle expenses using the logbook method, your logbook is valid for five years from the date you completed it. If your current logbook expires before 30 June 2026, or if your business use has changed materially since you last completed one, start a new logbook this month. A logbook must cover a continuous 12-week period and record every trip — date, destination, purpose, and kilometres. Starting it before 30 June means it applies from this financial year. The cents per kilometre rate for FY2025–26 is 88 cents/km, up to a maximum of 5,000 km — this method requires no log book but is capped and may understate your actual costs if you drive a lot for work.

Sole traders using cash basis accounting can prepay up to 12 months of qualifying expenses before 30 June and claim the full amount as a deduction in FY2025–26 — even though the service extends into the next financial year. Expenses that work well for this strategy include: annual software subscriptions (accounting tools, design apps, industry platforms), professional indemnity and business insurance premiums, trade association or professional body memberships, and rent for your business premises. The payment must be made — not just invoiced — before 30 June, and the prepaid period cannot exceed 12 months beyond the payment date.

If you are GST-registered, your Q4 BAS (April–June 2026) is due 28 July 2026. The data collection happens now. Reconcile all GST collected on your sales and all GST credits on your business purchases for the April–June period. Common errors to check: GST claimed on personal expenses, GST claimed on items without a valid tax invoice (you need a full tax invoice for purchases over $82.50), and missing GST on sales you may have forgotten to include. Lodge and pay by 28 July to avoid late lodgement penalties — the ATO's failure-to-lodge penalty is $330 per 28-day period overdue.

If you pay PAYG instalments (quarterly tax prepayments based on your previous year's income), now is the time to check whether your instalments have been sufficient or excessive. If your income in FY2025–26 has been significantly lower than FY2024–25, you can vary your Q4 instalment downward using the ATO's variation process — but note that if you vary too aggressively and your actual tax liability is higher, you will pay a shortfall interest charge. If your income has been higher than the previous year, consider whether a voluntary lump sum payment before 30 June makes sense to avoid a large tax bill at lodgement time.

The ATO requires you to keep records for five years from when you lodge the relevant return. Receipts fade, emails get deleted, and memory is unreliable — now is the time to ensure your FY2025–26 records are complete and stored properly. Go through your business bank and credit card statements month by month. For each business expense, confirm you have a matching receipt or invoice. Pay particular attention to cash transactions, which the ATO scrutinises more closely, and to any expense over $82.50 where you need a full tax invoice (not just a receipt) to claim the GST credit. SAB Account AI stores your invoices digitally — use it to attach supporting records against each transaction as you reconcile.

If you have any employees, Payday Super starts 1 July 2026 — which is less than four weeks away. From that date, you must pay super within 7 days of every payday, not quarterly. This is the biggest structural change to payroll in a decade. The actions to take before 30 June: confirm your clearing house is SuperStream-compliant, update all employee super fund details (USI and member number), revise your cash flow to account for super leaving the account with each payrun, and test your clearing house submission process now so you are not scrambling on day one. Read our full guide to Payday Super 2026 for everything employers need to know.

The ATO has publicly stated its compliance priorities for FY2026 tax returns — and four areas are under heavy scrutiny. Work from home: claims without a proper full-year log will be questioned. Vehicles: ATO data-matching includes motor vehicle registry data, fuel receipts, and GPS data from fleet operators — inflated vehicle deductions are a red flag. Gig and platform income: the ATO receives data from Uber, Airbnb, Airtasker, and other platforms — all income must be declared, including cash tips. Rental income: all rental income including short-stay rental must be declared. The ATO's $27.2 billion small business tax gap has driven significant investment in automated data-matching. Claims that are accurate and well-substantiated have nothing to fear — but estimates, guesses, and inflated percentages will not survive a review.