Creating an activity statement for a client not on the obligations homepage

Obligations are certain taxes owed to the ATO by your clients, such as:

GST—General Services Tax,
PAYGW—Pay as you go withholding
PAYGI—Pay as you go income tax instalments
FBT—Fringe benefits tax
FTC—Fuel tax credits
DCOIN—Deferred company instalment

There are 2 ways you can create an activity statement that isn't present in the activity statement obligations homepage:

Perform a single request to the ATO. You can do this for one client at a time.
Create an activity statement manually. This process hasn't changed and is the same way that you created an ELS activity statement.

To perform a single request

If there is an obligation missing in the homepage, add it manually by clicking Single Request in the Tasks bar. You'll need to do a single request for each missing obligation.

You must perform a single request to add activity statement obligations for 2014 and earlier years. The activity statement lodgment report (ASLRPT) only contains obligations from 2015.

Click Activity Statement > Single Request in the Tasks bar.
In the Client field, enter the client name or code and click Search.
Select the client you wish to add and click OK. The Find Clients window closes.
In the Single Request window, you'll see the Client Name and ABN/TFN.
The Branch Code defaults to 001. Change this value if required. Valid values are 001–999. If the format is wrong you'll get an error message. You can also click the drop-down and select a value up to 030.
Select the tax agent for this client in the Select Agent table. The client must be linked to the correct tax agent number for the request to succeed.
Click Next. The software starts retrieving obligations from the ATO.

If the tax agent isn’t associated with the client, you'll see an error. Click the Show Details hyperlink to show the error report and confirm the error, then click Previous and select the correct tax agent.
A Period table appears containing all obligations to the ATO for this client. Select the obligations you want to add, then click Finish. The obligations are added to the homepage.

These obligations are greyed out as they won't have pre-fill information. Click the Refresh button in the Tasks bar to update the homepage. When pre-filling information is available, the client name links are enabled.
Before you can create an activity statement for a client, you must have an income tax return to support the client's activity statement. See Creating a current year tax return for more information.

To create an activity statement manually

This process should only be used when an activity statement isn't included in your activity statement lodgment report.
For example, you lodged a client update form for a new client and wanted to complete their activity statement on the same day.

You must have an income tax return in Tax to support the activity statement. See Creating a current year tax return.

If you've added the form manually, it won't show on the activity statement obligations home page.

You can't pre-lodge manually created activity statements. Pre-lodge will happen automatically during lodgment.

The process to create activity statements manually has not changed. You can create them from:

the Tax returns tab, click Create Activity Stmt on the Tasks bar or
within a tax return, select Preparation > Schedule and choose the relevant form. For example, GA, GAB, GI or GR.

The only change from ELS is that you must select a form type. In the case of the BAS, you must remember:

to answer the question—Does this business use the Simpler BAS reporting method? (GST turnover < $10 million)
to choose the correct form type in the Form type field:
The Create activity statement wizard in the tax returns tab now includes the form type field. See Activity statements supported by the PLS on the ATO website for a detailed list.

The ATO tailors the different form types to meet the types of obligations the client has. Because of this, only certain labels are open to edit.
You can use the table below to identify the correct activity statement form type. Not sure what form type to choose? See Activity statements supported by the PLS on the ATO website for more detailed descriptions.

Form types in ELS and PLS

See our help page Activity statement form types in PLS for details on the combination of tax obligations associated with each form.

Form name	Form type (ELS)	Form type (PLS)
Monthly business activity statement	GA	Form G , Form Y
Quarterly business activity statement	GA	Form A, Form C, Form D, Form F, Form U, Form V, Form W, Form X
Quarterly PAYG instalment notice	GA	Form R
Quarterly GST instalment notice	GA	Form S
Quarterly GST and PAYG instalment notice	GA	Form T
Instalment activity statement	GB	Form B, Form I, Form J
Annual instalment activity statement	GI	Form N
Annual GST return	GR	Form P, Form Z

Based on the form selected and the answer to the question Does this business use the Simpler BAS reporting method?, only the ATO required fields are open to edit.