m book-keeper for 3 restaurants - 2 are VAT registered, the other is not yet (new and not reached threshold!)
They have all run a scheme via Living Social whereby they sell vouchers (for a short period) for a meal for 2 at £24 or for 4 people at £47 (discounted from the usual price of say £50/100).The offer includes one drink of Prosecco.
Some customers bring paper vouchers in and some just bring their mobile devices (from which they can redeem vouchers). There is no value on the actual bits of paper - just a barcode, so its up to the waiters to redeem online.
Living Social provide no invoices but a report via their website of total vouchers redeemed and therefore the overall income due, less their fees (plus an element for VAT)and then how much they pay across to the client. The only thing is that the report changes the minute anyone redeems a voucher so the only thing reliable on it is the overall vouchers redeemed and the money paid over to my client.
I currently split all customer spend between food and beverage nominal codes based on totals from Z listings from an EPOS system. Ive been told that the vouchers used are not run through the Z totals but as vouchers are redeemed the total for the day are shown on a spreadsheet that the staff use daily and will be sent to me, so I am now just wondering the best way to key the entries for the living Social side of it?
For the VAT registered companies - Do I have to pay VAT on the face value of the voucher or on the £24 / £47 value? Would I just key the voucher sale amount to food sales (as I do not know the split) or is it better to operate through a different nominal code? How would I account for the money coming back in from Living Social - would this just be reversed from the sales nominal code? How would I treat their fees and the VAT on their fees when its a 'moveable' amount? The amount they send through seems to be already net of fees, but I cannot see it on their system to know how much they have taken for what/what the VAT split is for the historical transfers, only for the next lot of possible payments. Ive been all around their website and cannot see any other reports - or am I missing something?
Hope someone can help (an idiots guide please as I seem to be having a brain meltdown on this one and its probably really simple!!)
Thanks in advance
__________________
Joanne
Winner of Bookkeeper of the Year 2015, 2016 & 2017
Thoughts are my own/not to be regarded as official advice,which should be sought from a suitably qualified Accountant.
You should check out answers with reference to the legal position
Can you get regular weekly/monthly (depending how often it is used) statements from Living Social, and then set it up as a bank account? Then you can reconcile against the staff spreadsheet ?????
I'm going to watch this with alot of interest as I have a potential new client that is a restaurant/bar. I don't think they use this scheme but would be interested to see what to if they decide to use something similar.
Hi Sam
Ive tried asking the owner (although he is now away on holiday) - he just gave me access to the website via his password - they do not seem to provide any paperwork, only the reports on the site (which I have to say actually calculate the VAT on their fees incorrectly, so Im not impressed!!). I might have to email them and ask some questions, unless someone else on here can shed any light! I will let you know if I find out anything from elsewhere. Good luck with your new client (Im bombed with work for mine!!)
__________________
Joanne
Winner of Bookkeeper of the Year 2015, 2016 & 2017
Thoughts are my own/not to be regarded as official advice,which should be sought from a suitably qualified Accountant.
You should check out answers with reference to the legal position
