Lost a receipt? What a sole trader can still claim, and the evidence the ATO accepts

What the law actually requires

As a sole trader you must keep records that explain every transaction relevant to your tax, in English or easily converted to it, for five years. The law does not say the record must be the original paper receipt. It says you must be able to show the nature of the expense, the amount, the date, the supplier, and that it was incurred in running the business. See record keeping requirements.

GST is stricter. To claim a credit on a purchase over $82.50 including GST you must hold a valid tax invoice when you lodge the BAS that claims it. It can be a photo or a PDF, but it has to exist and show the supplier’s ABN, the date, a description, the price and the GST. Under $82.50 a bank line or till docket showing GST was charged is enough. See tax invoice requirements.

Step one: get a copy

Most receipts can be replaced in ten minutes:

• Big retailers can reprint from the card used. Bunnings, Officeworks, JB Hi-Fi and the supermarkets can find a transaction from the card number and date.
• Online purchases live in the account or the order email. Amazon, eBay, Apple and every software subscription keep a tax invoice history you can download.
• Telcos, insurers, energy retailers and banks issue statements that are themselves tax invoices.
• Fuel is the hard one. A fuel card or the retailer’s app keeps the history, and a bank line from a servo is a strong record of fuel for a vehicle you claim.
• Tradespeople and small suppliers can reissue an invoice from their software, and must give you a tax invoice within 28 days of asking if the sale was over $82.50.

Step two: when there is no copy to be had

If the supplier is gone or the purchase was cash with no docket, work from what you have: the bank or card line, which proves date, supplier and amount; your calendar, job records or invoices showing the work the expense related to; and a note made at the time, or as soon as you noticed, describing the purchase and why it was for the business.

For income tax, a bank line from an obviously business supplier, tied to a job, is usually accepted as evidence of a deductible expense. The weaker the link, the smaller the claim should be: a $40 line at a general retailer could be anything, so unless you can show what it was, leave it out. For GST, no tax invoice means no credit above $82.50, and the ATO’s discretion to accept other documents is used sparingly.

After a fire, flood, theft or a dead hard drive

When records are destroyed rather than mislaid, the ATO recognises the difference. Write down what happened and when, keep whatever supports it, then reconstruct: bank and card statements from the bank, supplier copies from every regular supplier, platform histories, and your own invoicing records for the income side. Where a figure cannot be recovered, a reasonable estimate based on the pattern of other months is accepted if you can explain how you made it and you took reasonable steps to keep the records in the first place. If the loss affects a BAS or return already lodged, tell the ATO before they ask.

Making next year smaller

Two habits remove most of the problem. Pay for business things from one business account or card, so the statement is a complete list of what needs a receipt and personal spending never gets mixed in; see sole trader bookkeeping basics. And capture the receipt within a day, by photo, forwarded email or download, into the same place every time. Thermal paper fades within a couple of years, well inside the five you must keep, so a photo is the more durable record.

How FlowFi helps

FlowFi categorises every purchase from your bank statement, and its receipt upload reads the supplier, date, amount and GST from a photo and matches the receipt to the bank transaction it paid for, so the tax invoice and the proof of payment sit together for the five years you need them. Because the statement is the master list, the lines without a receipt attached are the ones to chase.