I submitted a VAT return via Quickfile and filed it with HMRC as well. As this was the first set of returns filed via QF it happened to cover more than one period so I set the first VAT return date range to a 12 month period (to cover Q1 - Q4) which I assumed would just work out what it needed to do behind the scenes as I received no prompts or guidance on doing anything else in the UI.
The return was filed in QF, showing as a single return for a 12 month period, which is obviously acceptable as monthly or annual returns are allowed but it ignored the fact that the VAT settings on my account are set quarterly so I would have expected something to say it wouldn’t work or didn’t match my account settings. It also submitted this to HMRC, but HMRC received this 12 month period as Q4 only so it threw everything out.
Obviously it was my fault for submitting 4 periods at once and Quickfile can be tweaked/altered/rolled back as required but it shouldn’t have submitted this to HMRC as it obviously did not submit to HMRC what it said was filed in Quickfile. I have now rolled back the offending return and put everything back in order so if you did happen to have a look at my VAT returns it is the only rolled back one that was the issue.
We did previously restrict submissions based on the VAT period settings (e.g. quarterly, monthly, annual etc) however we stopped doing that as there were too many instances where people couldn’t file closing returns that covered periods greater than their typical filing intervals. So we ended up making the validation much looser.
Also when we send the XML data for the return to HMRC they don’t accept a start and end date, like you see on QF, the only thing you can send them is a period ID which is nothing more than the month and year of the return, e.g. 2015-02. They then lookup their records to see what period this should span and only report this later when you poll their service.
Right now I would suggest having a look at your online Gov Gateway account to see if the returns you filed subsequently match what you would expect. Rolling back a VAT return on QF doesn’t revoke it at HMRC, once submitted there’s no way to cancel it using QF tools, I believe you would need to go into your VAT online services.
I’ve managed to straighten everything back out (after speaking to HMRC about the issue) by submitting the 3 missed periods correctly and then submitting the next return (Q1 of the following year) with a manual adjustment to correct the incorrectly filed Q4.
I can see why you loosened the restrictions but you receive nothing in the UI at the Quickfile end to say that it is likely that this will all end up going horribly wrong. Obviously there is a generic warning about submitting to HMRC being final but there is nothing to say that you are about to submit a VAT return covering 12 months to HMRC which will not be received as such (based on the fact that the QF VAT settings say I am on quarterly returns).
I know it’s a bit of an edge case but I would expect some sort of popup/warning, or have a global account setting 'allow submission of VAT returns that differ from what is in my VAT settings' so that you have to explicitly allow QF to be able to get you in trouble.
I think maybe we could add a big red warning just above the submit button to indicate that the period you are about to file is non-standard according to your VAT settings.