Review an income tax return

Overview

Reviewing an income tax return includes reviewing files and notes in accounts, signing off workpapers and queries, then reviewing income tax forms and sense checks. 

Review Accounts  

On the Trial balance page, the Review column, displays whether there are any notes, file attachments, queries or workpaper formulas on an account. The software uses a colour code to display the status of the item.

Grey: There is nothing to review. The account has no notes, files or queries, and the workpaper has no formulas.

Blue: There is something to review. A user may have added a note or attached a file to the account, closed a query that was posted to the account, or added a formula to the workpaper.

Orange: There is something to review. There is an open query for the account that needs to be addressed and closed.

To view only the accounts where a workpaper, note, file, query or formula has been added, navigate to Workpapers > Workpapers.

Similarly, to see a list of all of the files that have been uploaded against the entity, select the three ellipses in the navigation bar, then select Files.

Review tax position

Selecting Tax Position allows you to review the Statement of Taxable Income and the Statement of Tax Position. This is a useful format that displays the items in accounts which are impacting taxable profit. The tax position is viewable in different formats be selecting different tabs.

Resolve queries

Queries can exist at the accounts or entity tax return level, and display as yellow if open. For more information see queries and notes.

Sign off accounts

The Accounts page enables you to sign off trial balance line items. Each user on the entity will have a signoff column displaying. An account that has been signed off will display initials as green. 

If anything has changed on that account since the original signoff, the initials will change to orange. If changes have been made to an account and you want to review the activity (audit trail) to identify changes, select the name of the account then select the Activity tab.

Review income tax forms and sense checks

Income tax forms are found by selecting Reports from the navigation bar > Tax Return Forms. The forms contain the amounts that will be e-filed with IR, along with manual disclosures to enter, and system sense-checks.

Troubleshooting

Can't lock a tax return

• TaxLab instead allows you to take a read-only version of an income tax return, which has the same effect as locking data within a tax return.

Can't add queries to tax return forms

• If you want to add a query to an item on a tax form we recommend you find the relevant account in the trial balance and add it there. If you're wanting to sign off or add comments to manual disclosure items in the tax return forms we recommend creating an account with a nil balance, titled "Disclosures Sign-off" in the trial balance.

Related Articles

Add or remove a workpaper

Add a file to an entity

Queries and notes

Assign accounts in a trial balance

Sign off accounts and workpapers

Add and compare versions

Finalise an income tax return