Records reconstruction

Rebuilding books that were never usable to begin with

Some Australian businesses are not behind so much as undocumented: a bookkeeper left without handing anything over, a Xero file was never properly reconciled, or several years of transactions sit coded to one catch-all account. Finbryn treats this as a rebuild rather than a tidy-up, working from bank and card statements, payment-processor reports and supplier confirmations, because entries that cannot be checked against a source are not treated as fact.

We reconstruct a chart of accounts around how the business actually runs today, then map every statement line into it. An invoice that cannot be found gets flagged as an estimate rather than folded in as though it were confirmed. That distinction holds weight under Australian Accounting Standards, and it matters just as much to the TPB-registered agent who eventually lodges a BAS or return built from the result: a documented assumption can be defended, a silent one cannot.

Superannuation history is checked closely during a reconstruction, since the contribution rate sits at 12% of qualifying earnings and a shortfall that goes unnoticed can turn into a director penalty issue later. Where the business also operates as a base rate entity for company tax purposes, we flag that classification early, since it decides whether the 25% or the standard 30% company tax rate applies to whatever income the reconstruction confirms. This kind of project often runs alongside a multi-year catch-up, especially where GST reporting is also behind, and sometimes precedes a wind-down where the final numbers need to stand on their own.

Once the rebuild is done, ongoing bookkeeping settles into Finbryn's normal rhythm: reconciled weekly, closed early the following month, reviewed by a senior reviewer before it reaches you.