I have to compile a vat return for a client. He has a restaurant business. On the invoices it shows differents rates i.e Zero rate and 17.5% rate. I am comfortable with this, but my problem is: Do i have to account for every item on the invoice or just the totals for the Vat return.
Also when entering this invoice on to the system VT+ do i need to enter item by item and which is (Cost of Sales) purchases for resale and expenses etc.?
On this particular invoice there are items such as Marrow Fat dried Peas, Hamburger Relish, Plastic Folks
You will have some invoices/receipts where some items got VAT on them and some with no VAT - favourits are supermarket and cash and carry receipts ;) I suppose you don't have to account for each item but at least VAT rate groups on invoices. Well interesting question you should enter them posting to the right accounts, lets say you have an invoice with cleaning chemicals,food items, some printer papers and some drinks on it so you would have to post the total of chemicals to cleaning, the total of food items to purchases, total of drinks to drinks (alcoholic or non-alcoholic) purchases, and printer paper to office supply. But ( I do) you should number the invoices and put reference numbers with the entries on that way you are clearly able to cross reference the numbers and the receipts. I don't think you have to bother with saying 4 bread rolls and dried peas, you got a reference number if anyone interested what it is they can look it up in the invoices. That's how i do it, maybe others will suggest different ways.
With VT+, it does not analyse the different VAT rates, when you enter a purchase invoice (or a sales invoice).
You just enter the invoice total and if you have a mixed rate, the VAT total, then, if as Attila said, you need to, you itemise the different expense types in the analysis section underneath.
VT+ knows that some posting are outside the scope of VAT (like a bank transfer for example). Whenever a new account is created, there is a tick box to let VT+ know if it outside the scope (A bit like defaulting T9 code in Sage)