I hope someone can clear this up for me, we have a couple of clients who previously were submitting their own VAT returns under there own personal login details on the HMRC website and now we are taking over and doing it for them.
In order for us to be able to submit returns on their behalf, am I right in thinking we have to set them up under OUR agent login details as if they were a new VAT client to us (and then wait for the auth code etc etc...), or is there some other way of easily transferring information over? Obviously if we do it this way I guess we're going to loose all the history of submitted returns but that's not too bad as they're all printed and filed.
My other colleagues keep asking me about this and i'm never 100% sure if I am advising them to do it a really long winded way!
Just thought I'd give an update on this as for the lack of replies i'm guessing no-one really knew the answer to my question!! I've now figured it out that;
If a client has been submitting VAT Returns themselves, and an agent wishes to take over doing it instead then the client must log into the Government Gateway website, select Manage Services and then there is an Appoint Agent button, which when pressed asked for an agents reference number. Once they've put this in, the agent can then log onto their Government Gateway and Assign Service to HMRC and it will then appear in their online clients list!!!
Saves alot of time compared to the long winded way I was doing it!!
The only problem seems to be if it was another accountants submitting VAT Returns, it might be slightly different and i'm imagining there is a 'Manage Agents' button or something to that effect.
Anyway hope that helps someone who may be in a similar situation and waiting weeks for an authorisation code!! :)
