Including Advanced Tax-Related Merge Fields in Word and Excel Templates

When creating a template for Word or Excel, you can include custom merge fields that are based on tax information from Xero Tax.

Note: The Tax Merge Fields can only be used in the FYI pre-configured processes for Tax Assessments which are triggered by tax returns and assessments (refer to Xero Tax Return AutoFile (Australia Only)). If these Tax Merge Fields are used in any other processes (such as Custom Processes) or if a template with the Tax Merge Fields is used when creating a new document, they will retrieve the data from the most recent Tax Return or Assessment.

Advanced Tax-Related Merge Fields in Word Templates

The structure of the merge field is as follows:

    «Tax_'TaxType'_'Year'_'Field'»

The merge field is entered by typing it directly into the Word template using the Word Insert Field function (refer to Including Merge Fields in Word Templates and Stationery). It is added as a single Merge Field and including the underscores. For example, «Tax_ITR_2020_Income» (see below for further examples).

The following are the values that can be used for 'TaxType', 'Year' and 'Field' which are entered to make up the complete custom merge field.

'TaxType'
SMSF = SMSF
ITR = Income Tax
AS = Activity Statement
CTR = Company Return
TRT = Trust Return
PTR = Partnership Return

'Year'
2020
2019
2018
   etc.

 'Field'
State = the state of the tax submission, that is, Draft, Filed, Completed
Lodgement = the date it was logged to the ATO
Issue = the date it was issued by the ATO
PeriodFrom = the from date of the period 
PeriodTo = the to date of the period 
EstimatedPayableRefundable = the amount of the estimated refund that is payable
PayableRefundable = the amount of the refund that is payable
PayableRefundableVariance = the amount of the variance from estimate of the refund that is payable EstimatedIncome = the amount of the estimated income tax
Income = the amount of the income tax
IncomeVariance = the amount of the variance from estimate of the income tax

Examples
The following are examples of how you can include these Merge Fields in an Word template.

Your 2020 tax from «Tax_ITR_2020_PeriodFrom» to «Tax_ITR_2020_PeriodTo» was lodged with the ATO on
«Tax_SMSF_2020_Lodgement»

Your 2020 tax from «Tax_SMSF_2020_PeriodFrom» to «Tax_SMSF_2020_PeriodTo» is estimated to be
«Tax_SMSF_2020_ 2020_EstimatedPayableRefundablet»

Refer also to the document FYI Merge Fields.docx.

Downloading the FYI Merge Fields.docx

Click Download the FYI Merge Fields.docx for a list of Merge Fields that you can copy and paste into your Templates and Stationery (see the Note: below if you are using Chrome as your browser).

Note: If you are using Chrome as your browser, Chrome may block you from downloading the FYI Merge Fields.docx. You need to right-click on the download link above and select Save link as. If this then gives a message "FYI Merge Fields.docx can't be downloaded securely", click the down arrow next to the message and select Keep.

Defaults for Year and Tax Type

When Tax Merge Fields are used in a template when manually creating a document, if the year or entity type parameters are not included in the Merge Field, they will default as following:

• Year - whatever is available for the most recent dataset of the relevant client
• Entity Type - defaults to ITR (which is the dataset currently being supported)

To add the Tax Merge fields so that defaults are applied, add them to the Word document in the same way as above but omit either the Year or Entity Type according to what you want to default.

For example, instead of the full Merge Field of «Tax_ITR_2020_Income»

• If you add this as «Tax_ITR_Income» the year will default.
• If you add this as «Tax_Income» the year will default and the type will default to ITR.

These defaults allow you to set up templates with tax merge fields that can be used when creating documents via an automation or creating documents manually. This avoids having to maintain multiple versions of the same template. It also allows users to manually create documents that include tax merge fields in the event that there is an issue in an automation that uses the same template.

Advanced Tax-Related Merge Fields in Excel Templates

Merge Fields are added to Excel templates via the Email codes. You can set up the Advanced Tax-related Merge Fields in an Email Template and copy it into the Excel spreadsheet that will be used as the template. Refer to Creating Templates for Excel with Merge Fields and Including Advanced Tax-Related Merge Fields in Email Templates.