Because for facilities of this size a lender will often assess from lodged returns rather than full financial statements. The logic is that you do not overstate revenue to the ATO and you do not overstate the GST you claim back, so the returns are harder to dress up than a set of management accounts. It is faster for everyone, and it means the figures that decide your application are ones you lodged months ago and cannot now change.

Three reasons, and they compound. GST comes out of both sides, so a $440,000 quarter is $400,000 of sales. Wages carry a loading for the costs that travel with them, superannuation, workers compensation and payroll tax, because W1 is the gross payment rather than what employing people actually costs. And nothing is added back: no depreciation, no owner's salary, no one-off costs. This is a cash test, not an earnings test, and it is deliberately unkind.

Checking your return against itself. GST is one eleventh of a GST-inclusive amount, so the purchases you report at G11 should come to about eleven times the GST you claimed at 1B. Where G11 comes in below that, the two figures contradict each other, and the GST is the harder one to overstate because you claimed it back from the ATO. So the assessment reads purchases up from the GST instead. Nearly always this is a lodgement habit, purchases entered net of GST when the label asks for the gross figure, and it quietly costs you surplus every quarter it happens.

Not because there is anything wrong with it. The categories commonly left out are ones where the returns do not describe the trading position well: government-funded care and health, not-for-profits, and property developers all report revenue that does not behave like turnover. It means this particular assessment route is not the one for you, not that the business cannot be funded. It goes through on full financials instead, which is more work but not a worse answer.

Neither, and it is not a credit assessment. It is arithmetic on figures you typed in, against thresholds that are levels commonly seen rather than any lender's policy. Every lender sets its own, and several of the numbers here move between them. What it gives you is an early read on whether this route is worth pursuing, which is worth having before anything is lodged.

Usually not, and it is the most useful answer the tool gives. A surplus gap is a number, and numbers can be worked on: margin, the wage line, or in more cases than you would expect, simply how the returns are being lodged. What it takes depends on your figures rather than on general advice. That is what the planning form is for, and there is no fee for the conversation.

No. Andorra Advisory Group provides the analysis and the documents and does not arrange credit. Finance applications are handled separately by The Lending Lab Pty Ltd under its own credit licensing, and where a referral relationship exists we tell you in writing. If you would rather the analysis were done by a firm with no referral relationship to any broker, we will say so and refer you.