MTD - Advice Needed, Please Help!

[LHM]

Hi all

I’m wondering if someone can help me with preparing for Making Tax Digital. I am a small business who makes a living selling products on eBay, plus a small amount of business via a website. 99.9% of payments are taken though PayPal.

I don't have an accountant and currently use a spreadsheet to record all the information for both my self assessment and VAT returns. I would like to carry on recording everything in this way however I’m really struggling to understand how to make this work for MTD. I can’t afford to pay out for expensive software so was looking at using the free option on offer from Avalara. From what I understand, I can use this as bridging software with my current spreadsheet to create the ‘digital link’ that HMRC require, however as I enter the information in the spreadsheet either manually or by copy & paste, I am concerned that this will be an issue?

I am also confused about the ‘digital record keeping' requirements. From what I have read, I need to record the following for all our sales:

• time of supply
• value of the supply - the net value excluding VAT
• rate of VAT charge

I am struggling to find a report in either PayPal or eBay that would give me these 3 pieces of info for each transaction. The statement report in PayPal gives me the date and time of each transaction but only the gross amount including VAT, not the net amount, and the VAT % column shows as 0 for all transactions. When I queried this with PayPal customer support they advised that this is due to the orders coming via eBay. I can’t seem to find any sort of report in eBay that would give me the required info so I am at a complete loss.

Can anyone help with the 2 queries above? I would be so grateful for any advice.

Many thanks

Lianne

 

[Scalloway]

as I enter the information in the spreadsheet either manually or by copy & paste, I am concerned that this will be an issue?

I believe if you copy and paste the figures into the MTD spreadsheet that counts as preparing to figures digitally.

Are all your sales standard rated? If so you just need to add a couple of columns to your spreadsheet. VAT, which will be 1/6th of the gross amount, and Net, which will be Gross less VAT.

 

[John Hemming]

I do all of this on a day to day basis. It is probably, however, best to talk to me on the phone.

The rules can be found here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publi...t/vat-notice-70022-making-tax-digital-for-vat

However, if you want me to talk you through this it is best to email me at [email protected]

 

[justintime]

Hi Lianne. You only need to record your daily sales and you can do this by going into Paypal financial summaries and clicking on sales. Download a CSV file then do a vlookup on date and gross. This will then give you a daily summary. Add two more columns for vat and nett and divide the gross by 6 (assuming VAT rate is 20%) to get the VAT. then deduct the VAT from the gross to get the nett. You can then paste the daily figures into your spreadsheet.

 

[MyAccountantOnline]

Hi all

I’m wondering if someone can help me with preparing for Making Tax Digital. I am a small business who makes a living selling products on eBay, plus a small amount of business via a website. 99.9% of payments are taken though PayPal.

I don't have an accountant and currently use a spreadsheet to record all the information for both my self assessment and VAT returns. I would like to carry on recording everything in this way however I’m really struggling to understand how to make this work for MTD. I can’t afford to pay out for expensive software so was looking at using the free option on offer from Avalara. From what I understand, I can use this as bridging software with my current spreadsheet to create the ‘digital link’ that HMRC require, however as I enter the information in the spreadsheet either manually or by copy & paste, I am concerned that this will be an issue?

I am also confused about the ‘digital record keeping' requirements. From what I have read, I need to record the following for all our sales:

• time of supply
• value of the supply - the net value excluding VAT
• rate of VAT charge

I am struggling to find a report in either PayPal or eBay that would give me these 3 pieces of info for each transaction. The statement report in PayPal gives me the date and time of each transaction but only the gross amount including VAT, not the net amount, and the VAT % column shows as 0 for all transactions. When I queried this with PayPal customer support they advised that this is due to the orders coming via eBay. I can’t seem to find any sort of report in eBay that would give me the required info so I am at a complete loss.

Can anyone help with the 2 queries above? I would be so grateful for any advice.

Many thanks

Lianne

Hi Lianne

I really do appreciate what you say, I specialise in looking after the accounts and tax for new and small businesses and have done for many years.

I don't sell software or earn any commissions from it but I really do think you'd be wise to look at some MTD compliant software. One system which works really well, and will enable you to quickly and easily import your PayPal transactions too is Accounts Portal. It's just £10 plus VAT per month (£6 plus VAT for my firms clients). That really is a tiny cost in comparison to the time savings you are going to get compared to using spreadsheets etc.

 

[LHM]

I believe if you copy and paste the figures into the MTD spreadsheet that counts as preparing to figures digitally.

Are all your sales standard rated? If so you just need to add a couple of columns to your spreadsheet. VAT, which will be 1/6th of the gross amount, and Net, which will be Gross less VAT.

Sorry for the late reply and thanks so much for your comment. This was really helpful!

 

[urstop]

Try https://accountsdesk.co.uk/mtd. They offer custom solutions as well depending on the business needs. You can upload spreadsheet and use their bridging solution to submit VAT digitally as well as maintain digital records.