For contractors and consultants · Australia
Nella for contractors and consultants
Running your own company as a contractor or consultant: see the cash, the unpaid invoices and the BAS date in one place.
At a glance
- Built for
- Contractors and consultants
- Connects to
- Xero, QuickBooks, Sage, FreeAgent
- Your books
- Change only with your permission
- Free trial
- 60 days, no card
Secure connection · no card required
What makes the numbers hard here.
One or two clients
Most income comes from a small number of clients, so one late payment shows straight away.
The GST threshold arrives quietly
A new consultancy can pass the registration threshold within its first year.
Company money and your own
It is easy to lose track of what the company holds once tax and BAS are set aside.
Admin competes with billable time
Every hour on bookkeeping questions is an hour not billed.
How does Nella help contractors and consultants?
Nella connects to your Xero or QuickBooks company and answers plain-English questions about your own figures — how much cash the company holds, which clients have not paid, how much GST you have collected this quarter, and when your next BAS and company return are due. If you are not yet registered, it shows your turnover run-rate next to the GST threshold as an indicator.
Questions you can ask Nella
These are asked in plain English, and answered from your own figures.
- How much cash does the company hold after GST is set aside?
- Which invoices are unpaid, and for how long?
- How close is our turnover to the GST threshold?
- When is our next BAS due?
- How much did we invoice this quarter compared with last?
- When is the company return due?
Nella provides financial information and education, not accounting or tax advice. Nella shows you the numbers. When a question needs professional judgement, such as a filing or a tax decision, Nella says so and points you to a qualified accountant.
What Nella watches between your questions
- Cash and runway, derived from the ledger
- Unpaid invoices, oldest first
- Turnover run-rate against the GST registration threshold
- BAS and company tax dates for your business
- The bank feed: Nella tells you when it stops updating
Cash and deadline alerts are included in the free trial and on Nella Paid.
The rules that apply here
Stated with the tax year they apply to, and linked to the source. Nella reports figures; it does not interpret these rules for your situation.
A business must register for GST when its GST turnover reaches $75,000, and has 21 days to do so; GST is 10% (ATO - Registering for GST; Australian Government - Register for GST).
Quarterly BAS for the 2026–27 income year is due 28 October 2026, 28 February 2027, 28 April 2027 and 28 July 2027, or 11 November 2026, 12 May 2027 and 11 August 2027 for most quarters when lodged online; you lodge and pay by the same date (ATO - Due dates for lodging and paying BAS; ATO - Due dates for lodging and paying your BAS).
A company that lodges its own return for the 2026–27 income year does so by 28 February 2028; companies lodging through a registered tax agent follow the agent lodgment program (ATO – Due dates by topic: income tax).
More detail: GST registration: the $75,000 threshold · BAS due dates for the 2026–27 income year · Business tax and BAS due dates, 2026–27 income year
What Nella cannot do
Nella reads your books. Nothing in them changes unless you give permission in Nella, and it does not reconcile the bank, file anything with the ATO or ASIC, or move money. It reports what your accounting software already holds.
The GST threshold figure is an indicator from your books: the legal test is your actual GST turnover. Nella does not assess personal services income rules or your personal tax.
Nella connects to Xero, QuickBooks, Sage, FreeAgent. How deeply it can read varies by platform — the supported-platform table sets out what is read on each. See how your data is handled.
See it on your own numbers
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