Hi all

Hope someone can point me in the right direction.

I have a tax client who does their own book-keeping. They've been using an Excel cash book since they set up 2 years ago. They went VAT registered last year and have grown very quickly since. They have a wide range of products from healthcare products to childrens clothing. They have a lot of overseas customers as well.

The problem they're finding is that when they download a CSV from PayPal in order to enter their sales into Excel, I'm informed PayPal doesn't distinguish between standard rated items, zero rated items and also overseas sales i.e. outside of the EU. This is making the whole process of completing a VAT return a bit of a nightmare for them. They basically have to keep a manual record of different sales types (e.g. postage receipts etc) alongside their PayPal records to complete each return.

My client has asked me if there is an easier way to do the VAT. To be honest I'm not sure, I use Sage a lot but I don't have any other clients in this situation (thousands of small value transactions, different VAT types, going all over the world). I'm not sure if Sage or any other software would help idenity the VAT treatment of an item when importing data?

Sorry for the rather long question but any assistance/advice would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks.