VAT MTD Daily or weekly takings

Hi,
I am a small retailer who is moving to VAT via MTD digital. We use the scheme were we use VAT paid on purchases to estimate VAT on sales.
My questions are

  1. can we still use that scheme or will we have to separate out VAT sales via our cash register.
  2. In quickfile I put our daily cash/card sales as one weekly accumulated total.
    But reading the MTD website it says
    " Retail schemes

Retail scheme users will, by HMRC notice or direction, be permitted to record electronically sales transaction data based on daily gross takings, rather than recording details of each sale."
Does the above quote mean I have to input daily sales or will still the weekly total be ok.

  1. Also when does this actually start. I know it starts at the beginning of April but does that mean the first return digitally is the period Jan-Mar or April to June
    Thanks so much for your help

Hi @druidude

I’d be inclined to say HMRC would expect the sale to be recorded daily. However, I would recommend either asking your accountant or HMRC directly to ensure this is done correctly.

MTD VAT officially starts in April. HMRC has said:

If you are registered for VAT and your taxable turnover is above the VAT registration threshold (currently £85,000), you must keep digital business records and send your VAT returns to HMRC using MTD-compatible software. For the vast majority of businesses this applies to accounting periods starting on or after 1 April 2019.

I’m sorry we can’t be specific here, but generally these things are best confirmed by an accountant or HMRC.

DGT is a technical term defined in the retail scheme rules and is definitely daily. In practice I suspect it’s fine recording invoices once a week in general as long as you have backing records that can tell you the daily takings if anyone were ever to ask, and that if you have a week the straddles VAT quarters then you record up to the end of the month as one invoice and the rest of the week as another so that each day’s DGTs get assigned to the correct VAT return.

See section 3.5 Retail Schemes:
"The following rule has the force of law:

In addition to the records listed in paragraph 3.3 above, if you account for VAT using a retail scheme you must keep a digital record of your Daily Gross Takings (DGT). You are not required to keep a separate record of the supplies that make up your DGT within functional compatible software."

Here is the link to the full notice for MTD for VAT (Notice 700/22). You should find all the information you need here. NTD for VAT starts with periods beginning on or after 1st April 2019.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/vat-notice-70022-making-tax-digital-for-vat/vat-notice-70022-making-tax-digital-for-vat

Daily Gross Takings (DGT) must be kept digitally, therefore backup records giving daily totals will not be sufficient.

Thank you to you all. It looks like I must break down my weekly totals into daily totals.
Thanks again

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