I am really sorry I raise over 3000 invoices a year the way you describe the VAT liability does not change state during the life of the transaction as it does with refundable deposits.
THE RELEVANT HMRC NOTE:
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VATTOS2225 - Legislation: UK primary law (VAT Act 1994): Section 6(4) Advance payments and invoices
Law
(4) If, before the time applicable under subsection (2) or (3) above, the person making the supply issues a VAT invoice in respect of it or if, before the time applicable under subsection (2)(a) or (b) or (3) above, he receives a payment in respect of it, the supply shall, to the extent covered by the invoice or payment, be treated as taking place at the time the invoice is issued or the payment is received.
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Commentary
For both goods and services a tax point is created by the receipt of a payment or the issue of a VAT invoice in advance of the basic tax point. The only exception to this is where a payment is received in advance of the ‘adoption’ basic tax point under 6(2)©. Where a tax point occurs under section 6(4) the supply is deemed to have taken place to the extent of the amount paid or invoiced. In other words there will always be a further tax point where the amount invoiced or paid is less than the full value of the supply. For further information see VATTOS5120 and VATTOS5200."
So if i Receive the deposit before the booking a tax point is created and VAT liable but ince in the majority of cases it is recieved a month or so after the tax point is triggered by the creation of the invoice to the guest
I assume it is not possible to put a 100% vat code into your system that I could use to continue as I have for the last two years.
Hospitality, The construction industry and many others have reason to raise invoices where the Vat is higher than 20% My accountant I talked to today sited construction companies that have been told to invoice VAt on staged payments after they have been sent out so have to raise invoices that are higher than 20% I have checked the help systems on line for the following which all provide the facility
Netsuite
SAP
Oracle Finacials
Peoplsoft
JD edwards
Sage
Tetra
Sage
exchequer
Xero
all of these allow tax adjustments so people must need it not just me!
If it is really not possible to have a vat only line e.g. 100% vat code or to have the function as it was for the last 2 years to adjust the invoice I am stuck! none of the workarounds you have given will work, and after 2 years of thinking this is a great system I will probably have to fiddle it and plan to leave which is no issue for you but I believe this is a function a pragmatic person would see people need with no real downside