Estimate your WFH deduction from receipts you already keep

Most people claiming work-from-home costs pick the ATO's fixed rate because it's the one they've heard of, and never find out whether the actual-cost method would have paid better. The honest answer is: it depends on your bills, your hours, and what you bought — which is exactly the arithmetic a tool should do for you.

The two methods, in one paragraph each

Fixed rate is hours × the ATO's cents-per-hour figure (70c from FY 2024/25). The rate bundles electricity, gas, internet, phone and consumables — you can't also claim those bills separately. What you need to keep: a record of your actual hours worked from home.

Actual cost is the work-use percentage of your real bills — 40% of the power bill, 60% of the internet — added up per expense type. It pays better if your bills are high or your hours are low, and it demands better records: the bills themselves plus a defensible basis for each percentage.

Either way, asset depreciation stacks on top. The laptop, the monitor, the chair — their decline in value is claimable in addition to whichever method you pick.

The estimator does the comparison for you

Enter your days-per-week, hours-per-day and weeks worked, plus a work-use percentage for each bill type. The estimator computes both methods side by side and badges the better one. No committing in advance — you see what each method is worth before you choose what to claim.

Your bills feed it automatically

This is the part that makes it low-effort: if your electricity and internet bills already land in The Paper Keep (forwarded, scanned or uploaded), you map those categories to an expense kind once, and every bill after that feeds the actual-cost figure on its own. Individual receipts can be reassigned or excluded when a category is mixed.

Assets take thirty seconds each

Open the receipt for the laptop or the desk and hit "Track as work asset" — cost and date come across, you add the work-use percentage and pick a type preset (laptop 2 years, chair 10 years, and so on). Anything $300 or less is claimed in full in the purchase year automatically; bigger items depreciate by prime cost or diminishing value, and the estimator shows this year's claim per asset.

What it isn't

It's an estimate, not tax advice, and it doesn't lodge anything. What it gives you is the comparison, the per-method totals, and a tidy record of the bills and assets behind them — which is most of the work either you or your accountant would otherwise do by hand in July. Check ato.gov.au or your accountant before claiming.

This works even better inside The Paper Keep — start a 14-day free trial.