BAS season for advisors: Books Review, Intuit Accountant Suite and the GST AI Agent

Quarterly BAS is the heartbeat of most bookkeeping practices - and the Q1 2026-27 statements are due 28 October (11 November if lodging online). This guide walks through a BAS‑season workflow in QuickBooks: what to hand clients, how to run Books Review across your client list, where the GST AI Agent fits, how to lodge through QuickBooks Tax, and - if your firm has moved to Intuit Accountant Suite - where everything went.

Why accuracy matters more this year

Three ATO changes are worth raising with clients before the first BAS of the year. The penalty unit rose to $364 on 1 July 2026, so a late BAS can now cost a small business up to $1,820. General interest charge incurred since 1 July 2025 is no longer deductible, so late payment costs the full amount. And the ATO has said it will keep moving businesses with poor lodgement or payment history from quarterly to monthly GST for a minimum of 12 months - which triples the BAS workload for that client, and for you.

For clients who do their own books between visits, the BAS checklist for small businesses article may be helpful to share with them: ten steps with tick‑boxes to cross off as they work through their BAS flows in QuickBooks, ending with the GST AI Agent pre‑file check. The cleaner the file arrives, the shorter your Books Review.

Start in the right place

In QuickBooks Online Accountant, go to Clients under Your Practice, open the Bookkeeping tab and select Start review (or the clock icon) against the client to open Books Review.

In Intuit Accountant Suite, you land on the Home dashboard instead of the Client List. It’s worth a glance before you open any file: the disconnected‑bank‑feed widget tells you which clients will fail reconciliation before you start. From there, open the Clients app under Firm Operations (or from the app carousel at the top), then the Bookkeeping tab and Books Review as before.

Books Review lists the four stages of a BAS - Transaction review, Account reconciliation, Final review and Wrap up - shows where each client is up to, and lets you tailor the Shortcuts under each stage to your firm’s own checklist, with links straight into the reports you want reviewed.

Stage 1: Transaction review

Select the month or quarter you’re working on. The tab surfaces the anomalies QuickBooks has already found - uncategorised transactions, transactions without payees, transactions without GST, duplicates, undeposited funds and unapplied payments - and lists any uncategorised bank feed items behind a Review now link. Work through each table and mark it Done so the team can see progress.

Here, you have the ability to flag transactions and ask for more information from the client by selecting one or more transactions and choosing Ask client. The request pre‑fills a name, description and the missing details; the client answers from My accountant > Requests in their own QuickBooks, and the reply appears back in Books Review under Client requests ▼ > View all requests.

Two important checks to note here (we recommend adding them to your Shortcuts for this stage because the GST AI Agent may not catch them): 

1. Capital purchases coded GST on Non‑Capital (they need to land at G10, not G11)
2. Private‑use portions coded GST‑free instead of Out of Scope



Stage 2: Account reconciliation

Select the accounts to reconcile for this client with Select accounts - bank, credit card and loan accounts, and any balance sheet item you want to prove. You can reconcile PAYG Withholdings Payable and Payroll Clearing here too, which is the fastest way to confirm W1 and W2 before you reach the lodgement flow. Select the date or “Never reconciled” link to open each reconciliation, review anything in Outstanding transactions, and mark Done.

If a prior reconciliation was wrong, accountant users can undo a client’s reconciliation from My Menu > Tools (Accountant Tools in QBOA) - business users can’t.

Stage 3: Final review

This tab lists accounts receivable and accounts payable balances 90 days or older. Decide what needs chasing, what was actually paid and mis‑allocated, and what should be written off - accountant users can write off invoices in bulk from My Menu > Tools. For accrual‑basis clients these balances feed straight into the GST figures, so don’t skip it.

Stage 4: Wrap up

Prepare and send workpapers

In the Prepare reports tile select Select, then Open. Edit the workpaper title, period and which reports are included, then Save and close. Use Send in the Send report package tile to email the pack to the client or a reviewer, and mark both tiles Done.

Run the GST AI Agent pre‑file check

Before you open the BAS, run the GST AI Agent (BETA^) inside the client’s file. In their QuickBooks, go to All apps > GST > Overview, find the open period on the To do tab, select the ▼ next to Prepare BAS and choose Pre‑file check. The Agent compares P&L income with net sales on the BAS return for the period, lists every transaction causing a difference, groups them by cause and explains each one; you View and fix, or Ignore with a reason. It’s particularly good at transactions with no GST rate, income posted to an expense account, and income lines carrying a payroll tax code.

The Pre‑file check option only appears on the Overview page once the client has at least one lodged BAS in QuickBooks. It runs per client, per period - it isn’t a portfolio tool (see Intuit Accountant Suite below for those).

Prepare and lodge

Select Go to Tax Centre in the Prepare to lodge tile, then Prepare BAS (or Prepare IAS for a monthly‑PAYGW client’s months 1 and 2). Work through the GST, PAYGW, PAYG instalment and other‑taxes screens - if the client’s file is connected to the ATO the instalment amount is downloaded and pre‑filled. On the Summary step, use the Next ▼ dropdown to Mark as lodged, then Export to QuickBooks Tax to lodge through QuickBooks Tax powered by LodgeiT: complete two‑factor authentication, review the Details, GST, PAYGW and Summary tabs, select Validate (Pre‑lodge), then Pre‑lodge & Complete, send the e‑signature request to the client and lodge once signed. Choose Close instead if you lodge through your own agent channel.

Close the books

Marking as lodged closes the GST period in QuickBooks, but it doesn’t stop the client editing transactions in it - any later change flows into the next BAS as a GST amendment. The final tile takes you to Gear > Account and Settings > Advanced to set a closing date matching the period end, with a password required to change closed‑period entries. Tell the client, verbally and in writing, what that means.

Help article: Prepare and lodge a BAS for your client

Three things only accountant users need to know

• Advisors can’t set up the client’s ATO connection without the right access type. The Connect to the ATO option is hidden for accountant users. Usually the business owner - a non‑accountant admin whose QuickBooks name matches their ATO profile - has to nominate Exactor as the hosted service, by phone or in Access Manager. Registered agents who need to identify as the lodging agent should use QuickBooks Tax or their existing channel.
• Advisors can unlodge without calling support. Business users must contact support to unlodge a period; accountant users can unlodge a client’s BAS directly, in chronological order from the most recent. Download the GST Amendments report first so you have a record of what changed.
• Monthly‑PAYGW clients lodge IAS between BAS. If a client reports PAYGW monthly and GST quarterly, the GST centre shows Prepare IAS for months 1 and 2 (PAYGW only, no GST) and Prepare BAS in month 3, which carries GST for the whole quarter but PAYGW for the last month only. The monthly statements must be lodged first or the quarterly button won’t appear. How BAS and IAS work together.

Already on Intuit Accountant Suite? Where things moved

Intuit Accountant Suite replaces QuickBooks Online Accountant, which will be deprecated by February 2027. The free Core tier includes everything QBOA did; Accelerate and the Books Close add‑on are in free beta until 20 January 2027. Nothing about the BAS workflow above changes - the lodgement still happens inside the client’s file - but the firm‑side tools have moved. The QBOA vs Intuit Accountant Suite guide has screenshots; the short version for BAS work:

Two additions change how you might run BAS season at scale. Intuit Accountant Suite’s transaction checks and anomaly detection flag account‑level variances on the P&L and balance sheet across your whole client portfolio with AI summaries - an early‑warning layer that tells you which files need Books Review first. And Books Close (Service Delivery, beta) lets you run a templated review‑and‑approve workflow across every client’s BAS with preparer, reviewer and approver roles, without opening each file. Neither replaces the GST AI Agent pre‑file check, which still runs inside the client file against the specific period you’re about to lodge.

Help article: Sign up for Intuit Accountant Suite

Learn more

• Review your clients’ books in QuickBooks Online Accountant
• Prepare your BAS with Books Review (Advisor Resource Centre)
• The QuickBooks Online EOFY guide for accountants and bookkeepers
• BAS due dates 2026-27 - every quarterly, monthly and annual date, including weekend roll‑overs
• BAS checklist for small businesses - the ten steps to send clients before you start

Ready to run BAS season on the new platform? Switch to Intuit Accountant Suite Core free of charge, or book product training.

** Feature availability varies by product. While available in all QuickBooks supported languages, the AI agent’s output will be English only at launch. We recommend you review all outputs carefully. This information is intended to outline our general product direction, but represents no obligation and should not be relied on in making a purchasing decision. Additional terms, conditions and fees may apply. Product offers, features, and functionality are subject to change without notice.

^[Beta] has limited availability and is subject to change. Features may be more broadly available soon.

Books Close requires adding a paid add‑on to Intuit Accountant Suite; Client Insights requires the Accelerate plan. Neither is charged during the beta period, which ends 19 January 2027. This article provides general information only and does not constitute tax advice.