Hi Daniell......I always use the Balance Sheet and run it from the beginning of the year to the month you are filing for. The reason I do this is if you happen to back date an entry whether it be Revenue or Expenses, this report will pick up those entries as well to ensure everything has been submitted. This will also pick up any previous year end entries that your accountants request to be done. When I have my amount I want to submit, I then do the GST Return and Payment through my Bank Online. Works really slick and fast. Takes me about 5 minutes from running the report to submitting the payment and return. That's it. All Banking Institutions should have this feature if you have access to the bank account online. Hope that helps.

The Balance Sheet amount is the best source of information for filing. As Marj mentioned it will pick up all amounts even those from outside of the period you are reporting. If your GST period is from December 1st to 31st but you had a late entry from November which you entered using the November date it will still be on the balance sheet. I always print the full GL for each of the accounts to verify the amounts and as a great backup document. I then make the entry to setup a payable on December 31st. This effectively clears the account as at the end of the reporting period. When the next reporting period is being prepared if the GL shows other than a zero balance beside the December 31st entry then I have to check for a late entry and why. This helps when making clear notes as to unusual items.

I find a 3-account system for dealing with GST to be virtually bomb-proof.

The accounts are GST on Sales, GST ITC's on Purchases, and GST as Filed. All three are sub-accounts, subtotalled as "GST payable".

All of my revenue-side GST is posted as credits to GST on Sales. All of my (claimable) ITC's on purchases are posted to GST ITC's on Purchases. Then, when I file a GST return, I post 2 entries: On the last day of the reporting period, I do an entry to debit GST on Sales by the amount actually reported on line 105 of the return, credit GST ITC's account by the actual amount claimed on line 108, and put the difference (debit for refund claim, credit for GST owing) to the GST filed account. Then, when I either make the actual GST payment, or receive the GST refund, I do an entry at the payment/refund date to my bank account and to the GST as Filed account.

This way, as with Alwyn's method, I have 'clean' GST accounts at the start of each reporting period. Also, if I back-date any entries after I have filed the GST return, this will result in a balance forward in either the GST on Sales or the GST ITC account - and will automatically be picked up on the next return if I report the full account balances.

We use the 3-Account system as well. Pretty fool proof unless you post something incorrectly to the GST Accounts. I like how the balance sheet shows you all numbers including what your refund or owing balancing is. Pretty smooth.

We use the system as Alwyn described, it's the method recommended by Sage in the program help.

We also run both reports:
- the G/L YTD up to the end of the remittance period sorted by transaction number (showing corrections!), and
- GST YTD separately for purchases and for sales, (to put the filing totals at the end of each report).

To save trees and in case of audit, we also export them as PDFs. On a CRA review, they may want to see all the invoices for ITC on the March 2013 remittance, for instance, and these will be listed out neatly on the G/L report.

And I keep a spreadsheet to reconcile the G/L to the tax report and the sales numbers.