Hi, I have to generate a zero-rated export commercial invoice for the movement of my own goods between a warehouse in Northern Ireland and one in Germany, as it is required by the courier (but my company is registered in London, not N.I.).
Since I am under Flat Rate scheme, I need to put this invoice here in Quickfile too even though it’s zero-rated, so that it can be included in the total dispatches amount that is used to calculate the VAT I owe with MTD.
However, being a movement of my own goods, there will be no actual payment. How should I record this in a journal to fix the unpaid invoice?
There’s a nice trick I used to use in a similar situation to record reverse charge purchases before QuickFile implemented proper support for them - create a new dummy merchant bank account (call it something like “export vat corrections”) then go into the chart of accounts, find the nominal code for the new bank account under assets and liabilities, edit its settings and tick the boxes to allow this code on sales and purchase invoices.
With that in place you can create your commercial invoice against a dummy client, but click the in the item description box and change the nominal code to be the new bank account. Save the invoice and immediately mark it as paid into that same bank account.
What happens here is that the invoice creates a credit on the bank account nominal and a debit on debtors control, then the payment does the reverse (credit debtors control and debit bank). The bank account will show the money out and back in again, the overall effect should be zero on your P&L and balance sheet, but the amount will be included in your next VAT return.
in the item description box and change the nominal code to be the new bank account. Save the invoice and immediately mark it as paid into that same bank account.