I registered for VAT, now what?

[messiah]

I was late to register for VAT by some months. I hired an account to take care of it to register for VAT, and take care of some other things.

What do I need to do differently now I'm VAT registered? I have not heard back from my account in weeks, still not paid any overdue VAT, nor have I changed the way I work since before I registered for VAT.

Can anyone help make this clear to me?

 

[Mr D]

Have you had any confirmation of start date from HMRC?

To begin with I'd put your prices up by say 20%. On all items subject to standard VAT.

 

[Adam93]

The first thing to do if probably look for a new accountant if they haven't got back to you for two weeks.

 

[MyAccountantOnline]

I was late to register for VAT by some months. I hired an account to take care of it to register for VAT, and take care of some other things.

What do I need to do differently now I'm VAT registered? I have not heard back from my account in weeks, still not paid any overdue VAT, nor have I changed the way I work since before I registered for VAT.

Can anyone help make this clear to me?

It's very difficult to offer much help with so little information.

Has your accountant explained how and what VAT you need to charge and what's recoverable?

Are you dealing with your own bookkeeping, if so are you accounting for VAT now?

If you are paying for an accountant to deal with this and they've not come back to you after 2 weeks you really do need to contact them and find out why.

 

[The Online Accountants]

Do you have a copy of your VAT Registration certificate? If not, ask you accountant for this. The certificate will show your VAT number and the date of VAT registration. You should start charging VAT to your customers from that date and also reclaim VAT on purchases too. Your VAT number should be on all sales invoices.

 

[TheCyclingProgrammer]

The most important thing: start accounting for VAT on your sales. If your customers are mostly VAT registered businesses, then simply add VAT on top of what you charge and start issuing valid VAT invoices. If you're dealing with consumers, you need to make a commercial decision whether or not to absorb the VAT cost or not, i.e. you either keep the same price but as it's now VAT inclusive you're effectively lowering your price or you add VAT on top of your existing pricing.

Make sure you now what the requirements are for valid VAT invoicing/receipts, again depending on what sort of customers you are dealing with.

If your VAT registration date was backdated and you have made sales since that date, you will need to account for VAT on those sales and if necessary issue credit notes for existing invoices and re-issue new valid VAT invoices. If your customers are VAT registered businesses you can probably get them to pay you the extra VAT but it might be easiest to just absorb the VAT on these supplies unless it's a huge amount.

Start keeping accurate records for VAT so you can prepare your quarterly VAT returns. If you use online bookkeeping software it should be able to manage this for you.