I have a new client who has given me a last year's books to do but he has been completing a vat return for every quarter. I have never dealt with this before and wondered how would I ensure that Sage vat accounts balance with what his returns say? Also, if I found something he could've claimed/should've paid, what do I do about that?
Hi Jo I will assume that your client must have had some form of book-keeping system in place in order to calculate his VAT returns each quarter? This may be in the form of a manual cash book (simplex d books are always popular, but can be a nightmare to decipher), or even a note book or diary. If your job is simply to reproduce the VAT returns onto sage for the year, you will need to obtain the relevant sales and purchase invoices to post onto the system. After you have posted everything on to sage, the vat returns should agree. If I was you I would post one quarter at a time, agree the clients vat return, and then use the sage vat wizard to reconcile the vat accounts. If they dont agree or you find errors, make a note of them and then adjust for the error on the next current vat return (if net error is below £2K).
My client simply listed all the VAT that he should be reclaiming/paying on a piece of paper but he has missed a few things and claimed back VAT on things he shouldn't.
