When Nagaris composes a period's Business Activity Statement, it reads the client's ledger and produces a workpaper: the BAS figures, whether the GST control account reconciles, and any exceptions a reviewer needs to clear. Composing runs as a background job, so the page keeps checking for an update while a run is in progress rather than requiring a refresh.
Once a run finishes with a status of ready, the return page shows four cards in order:
Activity Statement
GST Control Account
Queries (exceptions and confirmations)
Composition
If nothing was composed (the run is held or failed), you see a single outcome card instead. See "Held and failed runs" below.
Above the figures, this card states the client (linked to their own page), PID, period, status and due date.
The figures themselves are grouped in the order a BAS is read, and a group only appears when it has a figure to show:
Sales - G1 Total sales, G2 Export sales (full reporting only), G3 Other GST-free sales (full reporting only), 1A GST on sales.
Purchases - G10 Capital purchases (full reporting only), G11 Non-capital purchases (full reporting only), 1B GST on purchases, and Net GST, shown larger as the headline figure.
PAYG Instalment - T7 Instalment Amount and 5A PAYG Income Tax Instalment.
Fuel Tax Credit - 7C Fuel tax credit over claim and 7D Fuel tax credit.
Payment - 8A Amounts You Owe, 8B Amounts Owed To You, and 9 Payment Or Refund, shown larger as the headline figure.
Withholding - W1 Gross wages and W2 PAYG withheld, when payroll data is available.
An IAS return has no Sales or Purchases group, since an IAS carries no GST boxes.
A W1 or W2 figure of $0 can mean either that the client genuinely paid no wages, or that Nagaris holds no payroll data for them. When it's the latter, the card shows a "No payroll data" note under the figure so it isn't misread as a real zero.
Where a label carries a value composed from ledger lines (G1, G2, G3, G10, G11, 1A or 1B), click it to open a panel showing every line behind the figure:
A breakdown by source (invoices, bank transactions, journals, credit notes) with the total and count for each, largest first. This alone often tells you what happened: a label that is entirely journals is a different story to one built from ordinary invoices.
The individual lines: date, source, description, tax code and amount, largest first. If a period has more lines than can be shown, the panel says so and notes that the workbook holds the full list.
Older runs composed before this drill-down existed don't have lines to show; the panel tells you to check the workbook's audit tab instead.
If a client's reporting profile is set to Simpler BAS, the card shows only three GST labels: G1, 1A and 1B. A note on the face states that G2, G3, G10 and G11 have been suppressed because the client reports on Simpler BAS.
The calculation behind the two faces is identical. Nagaris still works out every G label from the ledger either way, and the full calculation worksheet tab keeps every row as evidence. Simpler BAS only changes which labels appear on the face, not what gets composed.
Clients with an FBT instalment obligation get an extra section on the face for label F1. Nagaris doesn't calculate F1: the figure comes straight from the ATO's instalment notice, so it's entered rather than read off the ledger. Once F1 is entered:
6A shows the same amount as F1.
8A's total includes 6A, and the explainer under 8A names F1 as the source.
If the FBT instalment profile is turned on but F1 hasn't been entered yet, the return still composes. The figure shows as blank rather than $0 so it isn't mistaken for a real zero, and a query flags the missing figure so a reviewer can chase it before lodging.
If the run was composed with a basis override or a gate override, a banner above the figures says so:
Basis override: every figure is composed on the wrong GST basis, called out because a pack with a basis override otherwise looks perfectly ordinary.
Composed over a gate hold: the client's books weren't finished when this was read, so the figures may move.
This card ties the composed GST to the client's ledger. It shows:
Ties (green) or Out by $X (orange), as a badge
Opening balance, composed movement, expected closing (opening plus composed movement) and actual closing balance
When the figures don't tie, the card notes that something posted to the GST account outside the documents the engine tagged, typically a manual journal. When there's no opening balance to tie against, the card says the snapshot can't be tied and suggests reading the period again.
Lists what the engine flagged for review:
Exceptions to clear are listed directly. If there are none, the card says so.
Standing confirmations (what signing the BAS asserts) are collapsed under an expandable row, since they aren't things to clear, just to be aware of before signing.
Shows what the run actually read:
Lines composed, credit note lines, and lines with no tax code
Tax codes found across the period, as a set of badges
Documents left out: voided or deleted invoices, bank transactions and similar, dated within the period but excluded from composition, counted by kind (for example, "BankTxn x8"). Previously this only appeared as a sentence inside a query; it's now visible on its own so you can judge whether an exclusion is routine housekeeping or worth a second look.
Engine version, GST basis and when the run was composed, at the bottom of the card
A run that didn't produce figures shows one of the following instead of the four cards:
Held by the readiness gate: the client's books aren't finished yet, so the figures would likely move. You can still compose over the hold, but treat the result as provisional.
Held: this ledger is on a cash basis: Nagaris doesn't compose cash-basis BAS returns yet. You can compose on accrual to see the shape of the ledger, but every box would be wrong on a cash-basis return, so it can't be used to lodge from.
Held: named profile halt: the client's GST profile is one Nagaris doesn't compose yet: GST instalments, a GST group, deferred GST (import deferral), a large withholder, an annual activity statement, or a partnership/trust's own PAYG instalments. The card names the exact profile and reason instead of composing a partial pack, and there's no override for it. Fix the profile at the source if it's wrong, or handle that return outside Nagaris for now.
Failed: the run hit an error. The card shows the detail returned by the engine.
If a composed run turns out wrong, an admin can void it from the return page. A voided run keeps a permanent VOID status and a Voided event on the timeline, and carries a Void badge in the list of composed runs, but it stops being the run selected by default when the return opens. See "Composing and approving BAS returns" for the steps.
