Topic: Making Tax Digital VAT in UK and EEC

Institute of Chartered Accountants states "Businesses and landlords will be required to use commercial software to maintain their records and to update HMRC quarterly, starting with VAT." source https://www.icaew.com/en/technical/tax/making-tax-digital/mtd-for-businesses

Talk about red rag to a bull.

I am more now than happy using PHP and MYSQL with Drupal so would love to move away from "commercial software" so now would be a great time to try FrontAccounting if it can handle the VAT in europe and UK.

https://developer.service.hmrc.gov.uk/api-documentation/assets/content/documentation/446270b81ad1b6e7e27d4592afdba771-mtdfb-vat-guide-for-vendors.pdf

The above link is all about the API requirements as online manual submission of VAT returns will no longer be allowed or possible after April 2019, which could mean that there would no longer be any FrontAccounting users left in Europe after that date!!!!

I am willing to help anyway I can but do not have coding experience.

Is anyone using in UK/Europe at the moment ? and has any progress been made on the API

Hoping to read lots of fresh posts on this topic.

DAV

Re: Making Tax Digital VAT in UK and EEC

Just realized some of our overseas suppliers are going to be effected.

In fact what am I saying - of course any business hoping to do business with UK customers and are over the threshold are all going to need this feature.

"Overseas businesses that have UK taxable turnover in excess of the UK VAT registration threshold will be subject to the requirements of MTD for VAT as outlined above."   - source www.tax.org.uk

3 (edited by kvvaradha 08/13/2018 04:24:33 am)

Re: Making Tax Digital VAT in UK and EEC

Hello @Hirum,

I am not sure, whether this post helps you or not. But the basic things of HMRC is required to submit in their provided format.  Though the given link is not developer understandable API program document. its the instruction document.

Addtional:

HMRC Developer Documentation FOR API

Subscription service based on FA
HRM CRM POS batch Themes

Re: Making Tax Digital VAT in UK and EEC

Thank you Karur

I have also started to read

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

Re: Making Tax Digital VAT in UK and EEC

Again Thank you Karur

Somebody else coming in often encourages me to dig deeper.

I have now found this

https://developer.service.hmrc.gov.uk/api-documentation/assets/content/documentation/446270b81ad1b6e7e27d4592afdba771-mtdfb-vat-guide-for-vendors.pdf

Not sure if its going to help me, or anyone else, but I do hope so.

Re: Making Tax Digital VAT in UK and EEC

Sorry, pasted an earlier link instead of the VAT Customer Journeys

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/668753/Addendum_to_VAT_Notice_on_Making_Tax_Digital_for_VAT.pdf

Re: Making Tax Digital VAT in UK and EEC

Hope you have an idea to start implementing the HMRC with FA.

Subscription service based on FA
HRM CRM POS batch Themes

Re: Making Tax Digital VAT in UK and EEC

Thanks @kvvaradha

Whether I will be able to learn the skills is another matter

I am going to start by following another post.

https://frontaccounting.com/punbb/viewtopic.php?id=7123

But in the meantime are there are any VAT users reading this who have developed a way to identify VAT transactions entered using a date from a previously reported VAT period but not included in that periods VAT return, it would be really interesting to hear if anyone has a way to spot late entries to include in the following period. (allowed up to a certain level by UK tax authorities)

Also, does anyone run a "check report" of any kind on their VAT entries. For example if the standard VAT rate is 20% the report would "flag" entries which didn't seem to match that calculation because of user input error.

These are all things the tax regime is trying to see built into the system.

simple really - at least in the mind it is !

Re: Making Tax Digital VAT in UK and EEC

Hello all,

Seems I completely missed this very important bit of information on VAT, thank you for bring this up @Hirum.
(I am based in UK and so will definitely get impacted because of this.)

I read above posts and so going to speak a bit below... big_smile

Going through the links, it seems that to get started we should be fine if we use the so called "API-enabled spreadsheets".


The process I currently follow is very similar, where I download all the tax related data from front accounting and then literally copy paste it in to an excel template I have created.

The only exception to above is when I have made journal entries for expenses and vat needs to be reclaimed, for these particular entries I copy paste lines in to above excel sheet, and every quarter the numbers match 100%.


The only new thing I see is that I'll have to use a excel sheet which would communicate with HMRC directly. So some work required.

But in the meantime are there are any VAT users reading this who have developed a way to identify VAT transactions entered using a date from a previously reported VAT period but not included in that periods VAT return, it would be really interesting to hear if anyone has a way to spot late entries to include in the following period. (allowed up to a certain level by UK tax authorities)

Also, does anyone run a "check report" of any kind on their VAT entries. For example if the standard VAT rate is 20% the report would "flag" entries which didn't seem to match that calculation because of user input error.

With regards to the point of late entries or entries which need to be entered in next quarter, I follow a process where I reconcile every bank transaction (80% purchases in my case, and 20% comprises of sales/expense etc). Effectively I check what transaction are pending reconciliation from previous quarter, and they would be included in present quarter.

The template I use has some basic excel formula, which looks up net amount, tax rate from tax report via front accounting, and calculates vat amount on net price, and then check if it matches to what vat amount is in tax report(rounded to two decimal places, for avoiding penny errors).

Hope this long post helps. And please let me know if I can be of any help.

Also, if my memory serves right for zero rate tax, I've found that if you enter tax as zero, it doesn't show it as zero rate, if you don't enter anything it shows as zero rate big_smile

Just found this guys who are already providing solutions it seems
https://www.taxoptimiser.co.uk/Features/MTDVAT

I am sure we'll be fine when the time comes for MTD (Making Tax Digital).

Regards,
GJ

Re: Making Tax Digital VAT in UK and EEC

Any excel manipulation can be coded into a PHP file and executed on demand and later made into an extension. Exporting data from FA and then doing copy/paste and excel formula gymnastics will certainly make for un-appreciated "hard work" and time drudgery.

Re: Making Tax Digital VAT in UK and EEC

This excel manipulation would be a boon, especially for someone like me who's had to take multiple steps in order to 'comply' with so called regulations.

Thanks a lot.

Re: Making Tax Digital VAT in UK and EEC

https://github.com/PHPOffice
https://github.com/PHPOffice/PhpSpreadsheet

Re: Making Tax Digital VAT in UK and EEC

I'm UK based and using the Cash Accounting Basis reporting module for a few years now. I have many transactions using 0% vat rates, some at 5%, 7.15% and 20%. The system took a little setting up, so i'm still on V2.3.22 as it works well. I have to draw some figures in 'longhand' (ie individual expenses total for quarter) for Box 7 and can only access correct data from the comprehensive cash basis GL report printout. (pdf or Excel)

I am definitely interested in MTD solutions. I'm not quite sure what is meant by no manipulation of the data from software to software which is mentioned in the video link given by gj6n68 and shown below:

Just found this guys who are already providing solutions it seems
https://www.taxoptimiser.co.uk/Features/MTDVAT

Any experiences or advice in this area would be much appreciated as April is not so far away!

Many thanks

Re: Making Tax Digital VAT in UK and EEC

Hi Everyone,

I'm happily using front accounting in the UK for 4 small companies. I'd love to stick with it if possible.

Is anyone actively developing an extension to give us the functionality required by HMRC after April? If not, is there a plan to support it in the future?

If nobody has the time to develop it, perhaps we can crowd-fund the development? I for one would be up for contributing financially to such an effort.

Re: Making Tax Digital VAT in UK and EEC

Post your bounty and specs on the Job Offers Board.

Re: Making Tax Digital VAT in UK and EEC

Hi,

Found https://developer.service.hmrc.gov.uk/api-documentation/docs/api/service/vat-api/

The API is fairly simple. There would appear to be 2 issues. One that front accounting needs to have OAuth2 embedded in order to authenticate the HMRC - and the chart of accounts will need to specifically identify those transactions and VAT that relate to other EU countries. So the current Tax Report isn't quite comprehensive enough.

Cheers

Re: Making Tax Digital VAT in UK and EEC

If anyone reading this has the knowledge to implement this functionality, please let us know what you would want for your work and perhaps we can set up a crowdfunding thing?

Re: Making Tax Digital VAT in UK and EEC

I've created a post in the jobs offers board to see if we can find an interested developer.

If you would like this functionality to be developed, and are willing to contribute to the project (even if in a very small way) please respond here so I can gauge interest!

Dx

19 (edited by dls 02/14/2019 01:47:22 pm)

Re: Making Tax Digital VAT in UK and EEC

@doug86: I would definitely be interested - i'm using the Cash basis module and would also like the 0% VAT tracking/reporting to be more comprehensive to aid box filling on the returns. This is another detail that perhaps needs some work for MTD 

I'm also exploring some bridging software via my auditors Deloitte, but would prefer a more seamless integrated solution. Willing to help, but not enough time to fully develop solution.

I'm sure an integrated solution to this would further promote the use of FA in UK... I'm not sure how many UK users there are? It's a great flexible system that continues to evolve, with a fantastic community of support. The more people using it the better for everyone.

20 (edited by OLDDOG 05/10/2019 03:13:31 pm)

Re: Making Tax Digital VAT in UK and EEC

Hi all, new here on the forums but have been using FA since 2013, I have a number clients/companies I use it in, two of them are VAT registered so finding a solution to this would be beneficial.

I have subscribed to HMRC as a developer and read through some of the information, this is an update of my findings so far.
As vernonr suggests they are using OAuth2 in the authorisation/flow process.


The identification of EC VAT Transactions is something I feel we should be able to cope with , maybe with report change and flagging a supplier record as an EC supplier.


Background...

I also have a client that uses a high profile package, and as a result of MTD has had to spend £1500 pa on upgrading the system to a 10 user support contract to get their MTD module, being involved in a couple of the meetings it was frustrating to me and obvious as to why they had implemented in the way they had, and I concluded it was to maximise this opportunity for their financial gain etc. (It may also be they were involved in helping to develop the spec in this direction as part of a software focus group or something.)

Now the above may be true, the reality is that there is a reason why all of the software offerings appear to be based on cloud solutions and monthly fees. The system is designed around a MAN IN THE MIDDLE approach, meaning you communicate your data to an authorised provider/application and that application interacts with the HMRC API on your behalf.

Even the bridging software solutions are the same, and that is why they ask you to create an account with them, I am looking at the suggestion made by dls and this looks to be the best short term quick fix.

https://www.taxoptimiser.co.uk/Features/MTDVAT

Go to the site and watch the video, listen very carefully to the commentary and you will see that the process is,

1) Create an account with them
2) Authorise them to send data to HMRC on your behalf
3) Create a spreadsheet using their template
4) CUT and PASTE your figures into the spread sheet so you have box's 1-9 ready
5) drop the spreadsheet onto their portal, you are logged into, and they will submit it.
6) They will return a confirmation you can save/print.

or www.xlvat.com - another bridging package.

Currently the version of FA I use is 2.3.13. My current process is as follows (already raised by others), when I did my VAT returns I created a spread sheet, filled it with the data from a few FA reports along with any adjustments and then created a subsection for box's 1-9, which I then used when I logged onto HMRC for my VAT account and file the VT100.

So the tax optimiser is the closest solution, reasonably priced and a simple way to comply IN THE SHORT TERM.

WARNING !!!! This is not a long plan, it uses HMRC's 12 month soft landing plan where they allow for a CUT & PASTE operation as a valid digital transfer method. As I read it they are committed to removing this option making it only possible for complete electronic generation of the VAT return in the future.

So we still need a better solution in the next 12 months...… but using bridging software gives us some time.

I would also be interested to know how other people are hosting FA, I am using a wamp installation on a local computer resource, and then logging into it over my local network.  My local server does not have externally facing public domain name (MORE ON THIS IN PART2)

In PART2 I will discuss my progress so far …

ps.. before I get any negative responses I am not affiliated in any way with the taxoptimiser people, it's just the simplest I have seen so far, it's free to start with (just my opinion, please do your own research before making any decisions.)

The reason for this post is to start a more detailed discussion on MTD integration into Front Accounting this is my goal.

Re: Making Tax Digital VAT in UK and EEC

@OLDDOG: Have you got any further on this?

Re: Making Tax Digital VAT in UK and EEC

Hello,

During a meeting between Janusz (@itronics) and I this last weekend we decided that Janusz should look into this. He already has done a test module. More to come in a while.

/Joe

Re: Making Tax Digital VAT in UK and EEC

@joe: That sounds great.. i'm sure it's a good move for the benefit of FA all round and other countries reporting systems will follow similarly in due course if not already!

My reporting may be slightly different than many others as I use the Cash Accounting Plugin module - Works ok for input and output tax with the exception of tracking Credit notes, which I have to manually adjust at the moment prior to submitting to relevant box. I also have to manually work out Sales and manually work my way through the individual expenses and total for the relevant box. Best solution would really need to encompassed both accrual and cash accounting methods.

I did start to look into an implementation, but ran short of time.... Please keep us informed of progress and method, very happy to help in any way I can.

Many thanks
dls

24 (edited by gj6n68 02/11/2020 11:39:31 am)

Re: Making Tax Digital VAT in UK and EEC

Hello all,

I was just looking at the post from @apmuthu about the number of downloads (link below) and it seems UK has one of the high numbers of downloads(and I believe users) who all eventually might need VAT MTD module.

https://sourceforge.net/projects/frontaccounting/files/stats/map?dates=2020-02-04+to+2020-02-06

I see that a number of us started the discussion but, not sure how far we got. I am not tech minded but more than happy to help develop a module which could benefit all. I can definitely help in terms of VAT related calculations etc and little bit of coding.

Hope to hear soon.

Regards,
GJ

Re: Making Tax Digital VAT in UK and EEC

Most new user downloads from India and some other countries occur from GitHub since the Spoken Tutorial (instructions given during contact classes) use it - this will skew the SF downloads based inferences. Furthermore, many FA service providers in India use UK and US hosts.