A VAT return tells HMRC how much VAT you have charged your customers and how much you can reclaim on what you have bought. eba prepares and files VAT returns under Making Tax Digital for VAT registered businesses in Cheshire and across the UK. VAT returns are included in the Core package, which starts at £300 per month plus VAT. Registration, scheme changes and VAT disputes are quoted separately through eba Plus.
Included in Core, from £300 per month plus VAT
A VAT return takes a few minutes to submit and rather longer to get right. The time goes on the second part.
We check the bank is reconciled, the ledgers agree and there is nothing sitting in suspense. A return filed on top of unfinished bookkeeping is a return you will be correcting later.
Zero rated, exempt, outside the scope and reduced rate items all behave differently and all get coded wrongly by software left to itself. We check the ones that matter to your trade.
Business entertaining, most cars, and the private use element of mixed expenditure are all restricted. Reclaiming them is one of the most common reasons a return gets corrected.
The domestic reverse charge for construction, and the reverse charge on services bought from overseas suppliers, both change who accounts for the VAT. Getting it wrong distorts the whole return.
Submitted from Xero, or from whichever compatible software you use, with the digital links intact all the way from the source record to the return.
Standard, cash accounting, flat rate and annual accounting all suit different businesses. We check yours still fits rather than leaving you on whatever you signed up to years ago.
You know what the liability is before the money is due, so a large quarter does not arrive as a surprise.
VAT is the tax HMRC checks most often. We handle the correspondence, and where a visit is arranged, we prepare for it with you.
You must register for VAT once your taxable turnover reaches the registration threshold, and you may register voluntarily below it. Both situations are common in our client base.
The first year of VAT registration is the one where the mistakes get made. Pricing, cash flow and invoicing all change, and the first return needs to be right.
The domestic reverse charge means many subcontractors no longer charge VAT to their contractor customers, which changes the return shape entirely and often produces repayments.
Place of supply rules decide whether you charge UK VAT at all. Marketplaces, digital services and goods sent abroad each behave differently.
Property rental, finance, insurance, education and health income can restrict how much input tax you recover. Partial exemption calculations need doing properly rather than by feel.
If your bookkeeping is a carrier bag of receipts and a bank statement, the VAT return is not the problem to solve first. We would rather set the bookkeeping up properly and then file returns from something reliable.
For a standard quarterly return, this runs on a fixed cycle. You will know what is expected of you and when.
We ask for anything outstanding: the last few purchase invoices, the closing bank statement, and any unusual transactions we have flagged during the quarter.
Bank reconciled, ledgers agreed, unallocated items cleared. If we do your bookkeeping, this has been happening all quarter and there is nothing to catch up.
We prepare the return, check the treatment of anything unusual, and compare the quarter against previous ones. A figure that moves sharply gets looked at before it is filed, not after.
You get the return, the figure and the payment date. Nothing is submitted to HMRC without your approval, because it is your declaration.
Submitted through Making Tax Digital and confirmed. If you pay by Direct Debit, we tell you roughly when HMRC will collect.
The working papers and the digital records are retained for the period HMRC requires, so that if anyone asks in four years, the answer exists.
VAT returns are covered by the monthly fee. There is no per return charge.
VAT returns are included in Core, which starts at £300 per month plus VAT and is billed monthly by Direct Debit. That covers preparation, review, filing and the routine HMRC correspondence that goes with it. Insights and Partner include everything in Core.
If we are also doing the underlying bookkeeping rather than reviewing yours, that is added as an eba Plus Enhance bolt-on priced on transaction volume, and it is billed monthly alongside the package.
VAT registration, deregistration, a change of scheme, a partial exemption method or a dispute with HMRC are eba Plus engagements, scoped and quoted before they start. Most are a fixed fee.
One calendar month and seven days after the end of your VAT period, for both the return and the payment. A quarter ending 30 June is due by 7 August. Monthly returns work the same way. If you pay by Direct Debit, HMRC collects roughly three working days after that date, so the money leaves slightly later, but only if the return was filed on time. The annual accounting scheme is the exception, with one return due two months after the year end.
It depends on how much VAT you actually incur on your costs. The flat rate scheme suits businesses with low VATable expenditure, typically service businesses with few supplies to buy, because you keep the difference between what you charge and the flat percentage you pay over. It suits businesses with significant purchases badly, because you give up most input tax recovery. There are also restrictions for businesses with very limited costs. We run the comparison on your actual figures rather than guessing.
Almost never on either. Input tax on a car is blocked unless the car is used exclusively for business with no private use available at all, which in practice means pool cars and little else. Leased cars get partial recovery. Business entertaining of anyone other than your own staff is blocked outright. Fuel, repairs and servicing are recoverable subject to private use adjustments. These two items account for a large share of the corrections we make when we take over someone else's returns.
Three things. You must keep your VAT records digitally, your return must be submitted from compatible software rather than typed into HMRC's website, and the data must flow from the source record to the return through digital links rather than being retyped or copied by hand. Every VAT registered business is within it. In practice this means Xero or an equivalent, and it is why we set clients up properly at the start rather than bolting on bridging software.
Tell us and we will check it. Errors below a certain size, and not deliberate, can usually be corrected on the next return. Larger errors have to be disclosed to HMRC separately. Correcting an error voluntarily, before HMRC finds it, substantially reduces any penalty and often removes it, whereas waiting for a compliance check to find it does the opposite. The worst option is to leave it and hope, because VAT is the tax HMRC checks most often.
VAT deadlines are the most frequent in the calendar, which is why they are the ones most often missed by businesses doing it themselves.
Late submissions and late payments are dealt with under a points based system. Points accumulate for each return filed late and a financial penalty follows once you reach the threshold for your filing frequency, with separate charges for paying late. Missing one deadline is recoverable. Missing them repeatedly is not.
Tell us about the business and we will say honestly what you need, what it costs and whether a cheaper answer would do the job.
