I’m transferring my manual accounts retrospectively from April 2009. I’ve just entered all the necessary information to complete the first VAT return. I’ve disabled ‘Enable Filing Online’ in QF and have set the VAT period as below.
Now my first VAT return covered the period 5/4/09 to 31/8/09 so these are the dates I used to create the VAT Return. The QF VAT return reconciles with the one actually submitted, but when I try to ‘Submit’, I get the following error:
If I understand it correctly, if I don’t ‘submit’ it to QF then it will carry forward all prior transactions to the next VAT return which I obviously don’t want. How can I submit to QF with this date range?
2) Change of VAT period
I changed my VAT period from 08/2010 to align with my Accounts, so instead of my VAT Period starting in Mar/June/Sept/Dec it changed to Jan/Apr/Jul/Oct. This meant that I had to submit a VAT return for a single month (Aug 09), then start the next period to cover 1st Sept to 30th Nov.
How do I treat the VAT period settings in QF in these circumstances? - Do I need to change them immediately prior to creating the VAT Return? Will I be able to submit the returns OK? Is there anything else I need to consider?
The following Vat Period (Month Commencing) needs to be selected:
Now create the VAT return and enter the following date range and click ‘Recalculate’, all transactions from ‘Vat Filing Start Date’ i.e. 05/04/2009 will be pulled into this return:
There seems to be some confusion here, you state that you changed your VAT periods from starting in Mar/June/Sept/Dec to Jan/Apr/Jul/Oct and that you need to submit a single return month (Aug 09) in order to start the next period to cover 1st Sept to 30th Nov.
If you changed your periods to Jan/Apr/Jul/Oct from 08/2010, the last return for the old period should be 01/06/2010 to 31/08/2010 and then the new period will start 01/09/2010 to 30/09/2010 (1 month return for Sept 2010) and then a full VAT quarter commences from the 01/10/2010 to 31/12/2010?
When I started, it took a while for the VAT number to come through so my first return (as instructed by HMRC) was for a 5 month period (5 Apr 09 to 31 Aug 09). I then continued with the periods starting 1 Sept - 30 Nov 09; 1 Dec 09 - 28 Feb 10; 1 Mar 10 - 31 May 10; 1 Jun 10 - 31 Aug 10;
At this point I requested I change my VAT period so that it was aligned with my accounting year (Apr 6). So (as instructed by HMRC) I completed a single month VAT return for 1 Sept 10 to 30 Sept 10. After this, my VAT period changed to Oct-Dec, Jan-Mar, Apr-Jun, Jul-Sept.
I managed to resolve the QF issue as follows:
Change start date in VAT settings to 1/4/09. Keep VAT period settings to Jan, Apr, Jul, Oct
Produce and submit a VAT return for Apr-Jun 09
Produce the next VAT return using the manual date entry (as per your post above) to cover the 2 month period Jul-Aug 09.
Continue using manual date entry to get required periods (I didn’t, but I presume I could have change VAT period settings to Mar, Jun, Sept, Dec at this point then QF would then have automatically put in correct dates)
When got to Aug 09, just used manual dates for this single month
Changed VAT settings to Mar, Jun, Sept, Dec. VAT months from thereon in would be aligned correctly with my VAT settings and QF would automatically select the correct VAT period.
