About
For the person doing the work and the books
You do the job, send the invoices, chase the late ones and keep the receipts. What you can't easily see is the tax. Nobody takes it out of what your clients pay you, so the year's bill tends to arrive after the money has been spent.
Bilbee is invoicing, expenses and tax for Australian sole traders. It turns your records into a running estimate of the year's tax, and a Simpler BAS worksheet if you're registered for GST. The estimate moves as you get paid, so you know roughly where you stand all year, not only once it's over.
What you can see on any day
What you're owed. Every invoice, and whether it's paid, part-paid or overdue.
What to keep back. Each payment you record comes with a figure to set aside for tax, and for GST if you're registered.
What the year will cost. An estimated bill or refund, counting wages and investments too if you add them, with the working line by line.
What goes on the BAS. If you're registered for GST, the quarter's G1, 1A and 1B, from the same records.
Estimates, from the figures you enter. Not tax advice.
Who it's for
One kind of business, on purpose
Bilbee is built for Australian sole traders and no other kind of business. Staying that narrow is what lets the estimate be specific, and it means some people are better served elsewhere.
Built for you if you
- Have an ABN and invoice clients yourself. Trades, consulting, creative work, driving, allied health.
- Are registered for GST, or not yet. If you're not, Bilbee tracks what you invoice against the $75,000 registration threshold and says so on the dashboard as you get close.
- Run the business alongside a job. Add your wages and the tax withheld from them, and the estimate combines the two.
- Work with an accountant, or on your own. Invite yours for free, read-only, or use the EOFY pack of spreadsheets and receipts yourself.
Look elsewhere if you
- Trade through a company, trust or partnership. Bilbee's books and estimate are for one person's individual tax return.
- Pay employees. There's no payroll, so you'd need separate payroll software for that.
- Need a live bank feed. There isn't one. You download a CSV statement from your internet banking and import it.
- Invoice in other currencies. Invoices and card payments are in Australian dollars.
Trust and partnership distributions you receive, foreign income and work-related deductions from a day job aren't in the estimate. If they're a big part of your year, it will be rough there. See what it covers.
Commitments
What we commit to, and where to check
It's reasonable to be careful with a young product. So these are specific enough to hold us to, and each one says where you can check it. If we ever fall short of one, tell us.
Your money, your dataPaid by the plans, and nothing else
Plans are a flat monthly price, whatever you earn. We take no cut of what your clients pay you: on a card payment, Stripe's fee comes out of your payout and we add nothing on top. We don't show ads in Bilbee, we never sell your data, and we'll give you at least 30 days' notice by email before changing the price of a plan you're on.
Where to checkTerms, section 4Privacy policy, section 4
The tax side is never capped
Expenses, receipt uploads, bank import, the estimate, the BAS worksheet, the EOFY pack, data export and accountant access come with every plan, including Free. The plans differ on invoicing, the conveniences around it and the receipt inbox for forwarded email.
Where to checkThe pricing page
Estimates show their working
The tax estimate is labelled as one and lists its lines: taxable income, tax, offsets, the Medicare levy, HELP, tax withheld and instalments paid. The ATO's rates are kept in one table, with the date each year's set was last checked against ato.gov.au. If Bilbee doesn't hold a year's rates, the estimate says so.
Where to checkHow the estimate works
Other customers can't reach your books
Each account's records are kept apart by the database itself, not only by the app's code. That's called row-level security. An accountant sees yours only if you invite them, read-only, until you revoke it. Two-factor authentication is there if you want it. Your data is hosted with Railway, on servers outside Australia.
Where to checkPrivacy policy, section 5Privacy policy, section 9
Where it stops
Software, not a bank or a tax agent
Not a bank
Bilbee never holds or moves your money. Clients pay you directly, into the bank account on your invoice or through your own Stripe account, and there's no connection to your bank at all. The set-aside is a figure we show you, and moving it is up to you.
Not a tax agent
We don't lodge anything for you and we don't give tax advice. Bilbee prepares the figures, and you take them to myGov or to your registered tax agent.
Not a guarantee
The estimate is worked out from the figures you enter, so it's only as complete as they are. When something is close to the line, it's worth checking with your accountant.
Who runs it
Run by an Australian sole trader
That's a fair thing to weigh before you put your books in it, so here's what the terms say happens if you leave, if you stop paying, or if Bilbee closes.
If you leave
Export everything from your account page as a zip, on any plan, and keep it: the ATO generally requires business records to be kept for five years. Then delete the account yourself. It's a button, not a request, and it cancels any paid plan.
If you stop paying
Cancel, and your plan runs to the end of the month you've paid for, then you carry on under Free's limits with your records intact. If a payment fails and stays unpaid, the account goes read-only until it's paid or you move to Free, and you can still see and export everything.
If Bilbee closes
You'll get at least 30 days' notice by email, and the data export keeps working until the service closes, so you can take your records with you.
Contact
Tell us what's wrong with it
It's early. If something is broken, confusing or missing, we'd rather hear about it than guess. Email support@getbilbee.com and a person replies, usually within one business day.
Other ways to reach us
Already using Bilbee? Help and support, in your account menu, answers the common questions and has a form that reaches us directly.
Something broken? The support page says what to include in your email.
Security or privacy concern? Email security@getbilbee.com.