SparkReceipt does not fill in or file tax returns: there is no BAS form, VAT return, GST/HST return, Schedule E or TurboTax export. What it gives you is the tax figures from your documents. Create a standard report for the tax period, for example one quarter, and it lists the tax on every document plus a Taxes total for your expenses (tax you paid on purchases) and for your income (tax you charged on sales). You or your accountant then copy those figures into the return. US sole proprietors can also export an IRS Schedule C worksheet and filled form.
Get your GST, BAS or VAT figures for a period
- In the web app, open Reports and click Create report. In the mobile app, open the Reports tab and tap +.
- Set the dates to your tax period, for example a quarter.
- Set Document type to Any type (in the mobile app, Document category to All) to get expenses and income in one report.
- Choose Excel or CSV if you want to work with the numbers, or PDF to read or print them.
- Optional: set Break totals down by period to Monthly or Quarterly to get the Taxes for each month or quarter.
- Create the report.
In the report you'll find:
- a Tax column on every row, with the document's tax
- Subtotal, Taxes and Total under the expenses and again under the income
- GST and PST columns and totals when your documents carry Canadian GST and PST (see Managing GST & PST in SparkReceipt)
- one VAT column per rate when your account has VAT rates set up under Tax rates
Amounts are in your account's home currency. See What's in a report? for every column.
For an Australian BAS, the Taxes total under Income is the GST on your sales and the Taxes total under Expenses is the GST on your purchases for the dates you picked. Check with your accountant or BAS agent which figures go on which BAS label.
A running total of GST on purchases
SparkReceipt has no GST-only running total on screen. To follow GST through the year, create a report of your expenses for the year to date with Break totals down by period set to Monthly. It lists the Taxes for each month, and in Excel you can add a column that keeps a running sum. The Overview's Include Tax switch shows amounts with or without tax, but it does not show the tax on its own.
Only documents that have tax
Reports have no filter for documents with tax. Export the period to Excel and filter out the rows where Tax is zero.
GST on bank statement transactions
Tax comes from your receipts and invoices. A line on a bank statement only says how much money moved, so it has no GST until it is matched to a receipt or turned into an entry. To get GST figures that cover your bank activity, match the statement lines to your receipts, or create entries for the lines that have none. See Why aren't my bank statement transactions showing in my reports?
TurboTax
SparkReceipt has no direct connection to TurboTax and no TurboTax file format. You can:
- export a standard report as Excel or CSV and copy the totals per Category into TurboTax or give the file to your tax preparer
- if you are a US sole proprietor, export the Schedule C package: a worksheet as PDF and Excel and, when it is available for the year, the filled official form. It is meant to be checked and filed by you or your preparer. SparkReceipt does not send anything to the IRS.
Schedule E
SparkReceipt prepares Schedule C only. There is no Schedule E (rental and royalty income) report. For rental property, a standard report for the tax year gives your income and expenses with a total for each Category, which you or your preparer can carry over to Schedule E. If you keep each property in its own linked account, create the report in each one.
SparkReceipt does not give tax advice. Check the figures with your accountant or tax preparer before you file.