My first vat return

[westcountryepc]

HI Im just completing my first vat return (cash basis)
the figure in the vat return for total sales excluding vat is much higher than it should be?
I run a search in Sales for the vat period and the total of Fully Paid invoices is less than the figure in the vat return for total sales. please help - much confused

[ian_roberts]

Have you set a “vat start date” in your settings? This needs to be set to your effective date of VAT registration otherwise QuickFile will try to include all your pre-registration invoices in the first return. This is a side effect of the way QuickFile ensures that late-added invoices get accounted for automatically - a return will always include everything between the vat start date and the end of the relevant period that has not already been locked down by a previous return.

[westcountryepc]

Hi Ian yes thanks for your reply I have set the VAT start date to 1st september. then if I search all paid invoices from this date the figure is higher in the vat return than the search results

[ian_roberts]

On cash accounting it’s the date of payment that matters, not the date of the invoice. If you click the “export” button at the top of the VAT return preparation screen that will give you a CSV file you can open in Excel/Google Sheets or similar to see exactly which items have been included - there may be invoices where the invoice date was before 1st September but the payment arrived after 1st September, and those will have been included in the total under cash accounting.

[westcountryepc]

Ah I see that would explain it. so I should adjust the date of payment for any invoices before my registration. thats great thanks for your help!