EOFY Receipt Rescue: Get Your Records Straight Before 30 June

Somewhere in your car, your bag, or a drawer you stopped opening months ago, there is a graveyard of faded receipts. And 30 June — the end of the Australian financial year — is closer than it feels. If your records are a mess, this is your rescue plan. No judgment. Just the steps.

Why it matters more than it feels

Every deduction you claim at tax time needs a record behind it. The ATO’s rule is plain: you need records to prove every claim, and you must keep most business records for five years — from when the record was prepared or the transaction completed, whichever is later. Lose the records and you don’t just lose the deduction; a bad year of record keeping can draw the ATO’s attention and, in serious cases, penalties.

The good news: electronic copies count. Photographs and scans are valid records, as long as they are clear, complete, and protected from alteration.

Step 1: Gather everything into one place

Find every receipt source: wallet, car, glovebox, email inbox (search for “receipt”, “invoice”, “tax invoice”), supplier portals, bank app statements. Physical and digital, all in one pile — one real pile and one folder on your phone or computer. Don’t sort yet. Just gather. This is the step everyone skips and everyone regrets skipping.

Step 2: Sort by category, not by month

Chronological order is for auditors. For you, sort by deduction category: vehicle and travel, home office, supplies and equipment, professional fees, marketing, insurance. When each receipt sits in the category it will be claimed under, the return practically writes itself.

Step 3: Photograph every paper receipt — today

Thermal paper fades. Some receipts are unreadable within months. Photograph or scan every paper receipt now, front and back, and check each image is legible before the original goes in the bin. The ATO’s minimum for a record: date, amount, description, GST information, and the purpose of the transaction. If a photo can’t show all of that, add a note while you still remember.

Step 4: Rebuild what’s missing

Missing receipts happen. For each gap, reconstruct what you can: bank and card statements show dates, amounts, and payees. Supplier emails and online accounts can reissue invoices. If a record is genuinely unrecoverable, write down what it was, when, and how much — contemporaneous notes made now are far better than guesses made in October. If you end up estimating anything at tax time, be honest with your tax agent about which figures are estimated.

Step 5: Reconcile against your bank

Go through your business transactions for the year and check each one against a receipt or record. The ones without paperwork are your to-do list from Step 4. The ones without any business purpose are the private expenses to leave out — claiming those is exactly the kind of error that the ATO’s three golden rules are designed to catch.

Step 6: Lock in a system for next year

The whole point of a rescue is never needing one again. The system that works is boring: every receipt photographed the day it lands, every expense tagged with its category, everything exportable when your accountant asks. Five minutes a week beats five days every June.

A note on timing

Sorting records now, before 30 June, does more than save stress. Some deductions — super contributions, asset purchases, prepaying expenses — must actually happen before year-end to count in this year’s return. A clean set of records in June tells you where you stand while there is still time to act. It is also the moment to check your turnover against the $75,000 GST registration threshold, before a strong year quietly crosses it.

How Lemon fits

Lemon’s OCR receipt scanning turns a photographed receipt into a logged, tagged, searchable expense in seconds — and its receipt exports give your accountant a complete package instead of a shoebox. Do the rescue once. Then let the habit replace the panic.

This article is general information, not tax advice. For your specific situation, talk to an accountant or tax agent.

Download Lemon free on the App Store or Google Play — scan every receipt the day it lands and never do an EOFY rescue again.