An accountant working on an act's books is trying to answer three questions. What came in, what went out, and can each super figure be justified. Most of the pain in that job comes from the third one, because the number is usually a bank transfer with no working attached.
Here is the list, in the order a bookkeeper usually asks for it.
1. A per-gig ledger
One page per gig, showing the fee from the client, the fees to each player, GST in both directions, the super per player, the due date, the date it was paid, the method and the reference. This is the document that turns a bank statement into an explanation.
A gig ledger, in summary
- Fee from client
- 3,000.00
- less GST
- 272.73
- Fee ex GST
- 2,727.27
- Fees to players
- 1,597.14
- Super to funds
- 90.86
- Total outlay
- 1,688.00
- Net to the act
- 1,039.27
2. The reason beside every zero
Where no super was paid for a player, the ledger has to say why: paid to a company, paid to a partnership, under 18 and on 30 hours a week or less, revenue share, or the hirer was the liable payer. A blank is the thing that generates a question, and the question always arrives months later when nobody remembers.
Each of those reasons maps to an exclusion on the ATO's page, and the ledger records which one applied at the time the decision was made.
Source: ATO, Super for sportspeople, performers, film makers and related activities (QC107606)
3. Evidence that each contribution arrived
For every super payment: the amount, the player, the fund, the payday it related to, the due date, the date it was actually sent, and the clearing house or payroll reference. If a payment went through a clearing house, keep the confirmation the clearing house gave you, not just your own bank record.
The deadline is about when the fund receives the money, not when you send it, so an accountant will look at the gap between the two.
4. Invoices in both directions
Your invoices to clients, and the invoices from your players. Where you wrote a player's invoice yourself as a recipient created tax invoice, the approval record goes with it. Numbering should be sequential per sequence and never reused.
5. A per-player summary for the financial year
Total fees, total super, and the dates, for each player. Players ask for this too, usually in July, and being able to send a one-page summary within a minute of being asked is worth more goodwill than it costs.
6. Your own organisation details
- Legal name, trading name and entity type.
- ABN and whether you are registered for GST.
- The state or territory you operate from, because it decides which public holidays affect your due dates.
- Your invoice and RCTI number prefixes and where the sequences are up to.
How long to keep it
Five years is the working answer for tax records, and super records are part of that. Keep the working, not just the totals. A figure you can reproduce from stored inputs is worth more than a figure you can only point at.
That is the principle this product is built on. Every super figure is stored with the inputs that produced it and the version of the rules in force at the time, so a later rate change never quietly rewrites last year.
Everything on this list exports as CSV for the bookkeeping software and as PDF for the file. Your accountant will have their own preference, and it is usually both.
Source: ATO, Super for sportspeople, performers, film makers and related activities (QC107606)