I have a new client where I entered a few months of paperwork to complete a VAT return, this was submitted.
I have now entered some earlier transactions on quickbooks as they want the whole year done for the accountant, most of these purchase transactions have been reclaimed on a manual return not through quickbooks.
I understand how I can adjust these, but when I do the adjustment I have to choose an account. Any suggestions? Do I need to set up a new account?
Hi Patricia Have you keyed everything? Just thinking if they have already been VAT recorded manually I would key them all as 'No vat' so they dont appear at all. Then no adjustments are necessary.
Are you a pro advisor by any chance? Or processing under the clients log on as an extra user?
-- Edited by Cheshire on Thursday 29th of August 2019 04:18:46 PM
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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
Some accountants will want it all in the software, but they can also do the year end from a mix of the software and manual records. Given you are part way in....
Have you run the VAT return for each quarter and does it agree to the penny to the VAT returns filed (all boxes?). If so, I would run the VAT return in QB, but stop before filing it, mark it as manually filed. Then when you make the payment via the Bank (as Im assuming you are keying all the bank stuff as well, you just process the payment to the VAT liability account as normal and rec the bank as usual too. (oops just realised I didnt ask if this was desktop or online version!).
HTH
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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
Hi using quickbooks online. I have had to work backwards with regard to VAT. I had to prepare a VAT return fairly quickly. So keyed In. What I needed for that first, then submitted. Then carried on getting previous months in. now starting to prepare the first MTD return which is due shortly. But this is then picking up previous entries which a manual return has been completed. I understand about preparing the first return but I still havnt got all the paperwork. I am just think to post this adjustment to some kind of suspense account and explain to the accountant?? As this return needs submitting soon
Given the deadlines you could submit the return via some bridging software with the correct figures whilst you take time to make sure the figures are correct in QBO.
Well you have a week. Johns idea is a great one, so i would authorise some software now so that you have it as a backup, giv you need 72 hours for authorisation of software.
Then in the meantime you have a couple of options as I see it.
1) are the Accountants set up with access for quickbooks online and are they pro advisors? If they are, I would phone them and ask for their advice. If not I would not do an exceptions adjustment as you are proposing because it's just storing up a problem for them which would be easier to sort by keying it all as no vat, or just giving them the paper records for the prior periods.
The exceptions adjustment will just be dumping a lump sum in an account which will be messy to sort out from what I've seen.(not much on QBO to be fair)
2) ring quickbooks and see if there is a way you can prevent earlier vat I reconciled transactions from being included. There is a way on most software, although from what I've read, again not much, it's automatic on QBO (although, in part the Eason I suggested point 1 above is because the Accountant might be able to override that for you as they have different permissions to you!).
3) go back and mark the older entries as No vat. So none pull forward. Then when you have all the info for the prior period, plus can match it to the manual vat run, just adjust your earlier vat entries back to std etc appropriately, run the old vat returns and Mark as filed manually. This might cause an issue for bank Rec completed items. Or you could just do adjustments for the vat liability for the prior periods much as you would do for if the vat registration was done part way through a financial year.
None of the options on QBO are great. Which is why John H's suggestion is probably better. Plus so easy to do. As well as free.
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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
Possible better option - contact QBO and ask if you can re-open a closed VAT period. I think maybe you can.
If so, just close the earlier period whilst you submit your MTD period, will prevent pulling forward the older stuff. Then re-open the ealier one when you have all the paperwork.
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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
Joining MTD takes about 72 hours. Authorising software should take under a minute and is pretty well immediate in effect. Also you can have more than one MTD supplier authorised for the ASA at one time.
For example: If you have some QBO clients and some Xero clients you would authorise your ASA for QBO and Xero, but you could also authorise the software for Vat Direct. Then every week Vat Direct could send you an email with a list of the vat statuses for all of your clients whether they are on QBO, Xero or Vat Direct. You can also use Vat Direct to look up what vat returns have gone in or are outstanding on QBO or Xero as well as any bridging accounts (whether they are submitted by Vat direct or VT or anything else).
Xero also have a VAT HQ function that has similarities. I don't know, however, if it can look at clients that are not on Xero.
I am not aware of any other supplier that has a VAT HQ function. Xero does it looking up the results. Vat Direct looks up the situation on a Sunday and sends an email, but can also be looked at during the week. Updating the vat status, however, takes a bit of time as it has to run the HMRC Api functions on all of your clients.
I have found the links that give you the current authorisation status on HMRC's servers
Thank you Joanne & John for all your help, I am going to go through and change all the entries for the VAT period done manually to no VAT and see how it goes.
Thank you for all your advise it is much appreciated
