Tax help for sole traders and home businesses in Eltham North.

A suburb that works from home

Eltham North became its own locality in 1925, when the area then known as Glen Park got a school of its own: Eltham North Primary School, on Wattletree Road. A century later, the same road is where local families take the kids to the Eltham North Adventure Playground, rebuilt in 2018 after a fire in December 2017, beside Edendale Farm. It's a residential suburb at heart, separated from Eltham proper by the Diamond Creek waterway, with no station of its own and no real shopping centre.

That doesn't mean nobody works here. It means the work happens in home offices, garages and utes. Think electricians and plumbers who run their week from the kitchen table, IT contractors, physios with a home clinic room, designers, project managers and people who turned a weekend interest into a second income. Nillumbik Shire Council describes home-based businesses as the backbone of the local economy, with 62% of operators relying on their business as their main income. Our services are built for exactly that kind of operator.

When a side business stops being a side business

Plenty of Eltham North operators didn't set out to run a business. They took on a bit of freelance work, sold a few things online or picked up contracting jobs on an ABN, and one day realised it had become real. That's the point where a shoebox of receipts stops working, and where payments arriving through marketplaces, payment apps and direct transfers start to blur into the family's everyday spending.

We help you draw a clear line between business and household money, choose and set up cloud accounting software that suits the size of what you do, and keep an eye on your turnover so you register for GST at the right time rather than finding out late. Once you're registered, we prepare and lodge your BAS each quarter.

Contractors and consultants on an ABN

Working on an ABN means nobody is withholding tax for you. A good year can leave you with a large bill, and the ATO may then ask you to pay instalments through the following year as well. We help you work out how much to put aside from each invoice, track the costs you can claim, from tools and vehicles to software and a share of your home office, and prepare your individual or business tax return so there are no surprises in October. If you drive between client sites, a logbook kept for a continuous 12 weeks will usually support a better car claim than a rough estimate, and we'll show you how to keep one without fuss.

One suburb, two councils

Eltham North sits across two council areas, Banyule and Nillumbik, so which council handles your permits, rates and local business support depends on which street you're on. Your tax obligations are the same either way, because they sit with the ATO, but it's worth knowing who to call for the rest.

Ready for the next step

Some Eltham North businesses outgrow the spare room. If you're weighing up a first employee, a company structure or leasing a workspace, our business advisory service looks at your figures and cash flow first, so the decision rests on numbers rather than a hunch.

Our Greensborough office is about 5 km away. With no station in the suburb, a visit from Brian is often easier than a trip to us, so he can meet you at home in Eltham North, at the office, or over a video call between jobs.