SaaS ERP Consultant, Australia

GST for local sales, overseas customers and inbound services

For an Australian SaaS company, GST treatment depends on who the customer is and where they are. Subscriptions sold to Australian customers generally include GST. Sales to customers overseas may be GST-free in some circumstances, but the conditions matter and should be confirmed with your accountant. On the other side, overseas suppliers selling digital services to Australian consumers are generally expected to account for GST too, which matters if part of your group sits outside Australia.

Those rules turn into practical requirements in the billing system:

• Collect an ABN from Australian business customers where it affects invoicing, and validate it.
• Record the customer's location using more than one piece of evidence, such as billing address and payment country, so overseas treatment can be supported later.
• Map each customer type to a tax code and invoice wording, and keep subscription and service lines separate.
• Produce GST figures in the shape the BAS needs, so the person preparing it reviews numbers rather than rebuilding them.

I also check how tax flows from the billing platform into Xero, MYOB or the ERP, because summarized journals can lose the detail needed for reconciliation. The broader Australian system picture is on my ERP consultant in Australia page.

Selling across the Tasman and beyond

New Zealand is often the first overseas market for an Australian software company, followed by the United States or the UK. Each step adds design decisions. New Zealand has its own GST, including rules for remote services supplied to consumers there. US customers bring the question of state sales tax on software. UK and EU customers bring VAT on digital services. Your advisors decide which obligations apply; the billing design must be able to carry them without a separate setup for every country.

Currency is the other half. Prices may be set in Australian, New Zealand and US dollars, and the company needs a rule for whether a customer's currency can change at renewal. Exchange differences need consistent posting, and recurring revenue metrics need a stated conversion rule so reported growth reflects customers rather than exchange rates.

When an overseas entity is created, I map which entity signs each customer, how the CRM records it, how billing routes invoices to the correct entity and how the ledger consolidates the group. Getting this right before the second entity starts trading avoids months of reclassification later. The underlying quote-to-cash structure is explained on my ERP for SaaS page.

Staying on Xero or moving to an ERP

Many Australian SaaS companies run Xero or MYOB with a subscription billing platform on top, and that can serve for a long time. I do not assume an ERP is the answer. The signals that suggest the current stack is reaching its limit are usually these:

• More than one trading entity, with consolidation done in spreadsheets.
• Deferred revenue schedules maintained outside the ledger because line-level detail is lost in summary journals.
• Investor or lender reporting that takes days to assemble and still cannot be traced to invoices.
• Professional services, hardware or partner revenue that the billing platform was not built to handle.

If two or more apply, I run a structured ERP evaluation comparing an extended version of your current stack with ERP options, tested with your own contracts. The CRM stays in scope, because price book and quoting errors cause many billing problems; my CRM consulting covers that handoff. When migration is chosen, I plan how active subscriptions, payment methods and opening deferred balances move without disrupting customers, and how payroll and STP reporting connect if they sit in a separate tool.

R&D records, revenue data and remote work

Australian software companies that register for the research and development tax incentive need records of eligible activities, time and costs. I do not advise on eligibility, which is your advisor's role, but I check that project codes, time records and payroll data are captured in a usable form throughout the year rather than reconstructed afterwards.

Revenue data needs similar care. Your accountant sets the revenue policy; I make sure the systems store contract dates, schedules by line, onboarding fees and every amendment, so deferred revenue can be produced on demand and traced to signed agreements. That data also feeds growth decisions: with a shared account identifier across product, CRM and billing, you can see which acquisition channels bring customers who stay, and measure SaaS SEO or paid campaigns on subscriptions rather than sign-ups.

I deliver remotely. Australian teams may sit across states with different daylight saving rules, and companies selling into the US often work late or early to overlap with customers. I schedule live sessions in the hours that suit your finance and revenue leads and use recorded walkthroughs for everyone else. More about working with Australian businesses is on the Australia hub.