What Reports Should You Expect From Your Bookkeeper Each Month?

Ask ten small business owners what reports they get from their bookkeeper and you'll get ten different answers — some get a PDF nobody opens, some get nothing until BAS time, and a few get exactly what they need in a format they actually understand. If you're not sure which category you're in, or what "good" even looks like here, this is the plain-English version.

1. Profit and Loss Statement — did the business make money?

The Profit and Loss (P&L), sometimes called an income statement, lists income and expenses over a set period — usually a month, a quarter, or a financial year — and shows whether the business was profitable in that window. It's the report most people picture when they think "financials," and it's the one that answers the most basic question a business owner needs answered regularly: are we making money, and how does this month compare to last month?

A P&L is most useful when compared side by side with a prior period, not viewed in isolation. A single month's number tells you little; the trend across several months tells you a lot.

2. Balance Sheet — what does the business own and owe?

Where the P&L covers a period, the Balance Sheet is a snapshot at a single date. It lists assets (cash, equipment, money owed to you), liabilities (loans, credit cards, super and tax owed), and the resulting equity. It's the report that answers: if we stopped trading today, what would this business actually be worth, and how much debt is sitting against it?

Business owners tend to look at this one less often than the P&L, but it matters just as much — particularly for tracking whether debt is growing faster than assets, which is an early sign of financial strain.

3. Aged Receivables (Debtors) Report — who owes you money, and for how long?

This report is arguably the most operationally useful one a small business gets, and it's often the most ignored. It lists every unpaid invoice, grouped by how overdue it is — current, 30 days, 60 days, 90+ days. A business can look profitable on the P&L and still be in real cash flow trouble if a large chunk of that "profit" is sitting unpaid in the 60-90 day columns.

Reviewing this monthly (weekly during a tight period) turns debt collection from an afterthought into a routine — chase the 30-day invoices before they become 60-day invoices, and the 90-day column stays close to empty.

4. Aged Payables Report — who do you owe, and when is it due?

The mirror image of the receivables report — a list of what the business owes suppliers, grouped by due date. This one matters for cash flow planning: knowing what's due in the next two, four, and eight weeks lets you plan around it, rather than being surprised by a supplier statement demanding immediate payment on something that was actually due weeks ago.

5. Payroll Summary — what did staff actually cost this period?

For any business with employees, a payroll summary breaks down gross wages, PAYG withholding, superannuation, and any allowances or overtime paid in the period. This report matters for two reasons: it confirms STP reporting to the ATO is accurate, and it gives an ongoing view of labour cost as a percentage of revenue — a number worth watching as a business scales.

6. BAS Summary — what's owed to the ATO and when

A BAS summary shows GST collected, GST paid, PAYG withholding, and any PAYG instalments for the quarter, alongside the net amount owed or refundable. Seeing this a few weeks before the actual BAS lodgement — rather than finding out the figure on lodgement day — gives a business time to set money aside rather than scrambling to cover it.

7. Job or Service-Line Profitability — where is the business actually making money?

Not every business needs this one monthly, but any business running multiple job types, service lines, or client categories benefits enormously from it. Total revenue can hide the fact that one service line is highly profitable and another is losing money on every job without anyone noticing. Without this report, it's hard to know which parts of the business are worth growing and which need a pricing review.

What "good" reporting actually looks like

A stack of PDFs emailed once a month with no explanation isn't reporting — it's an archive. Good reporting means someone walks you through what changed since last time, in plain language, and flags anything that needs a decision. If your current reports arrive with no context or conversation attached, that's the piece missing, not the reports themselves.