Managing VAT Reporting

These tasks are typically performed by someone with Accountant user permissions.

The Generate, Reconcile, and Delete processes can be batch Apex jobs. To monitor the status of Apex jobs click Your Name | Setup | Monitoring | Apex Jobs.

Note:

Do not change the current company while a batch Apex job is being processed.

Cash VAT Accounting only reports on transactions originating from sales invoices, sales credit notes, payable invoices, and purchase credit notes, not journals.

The Generate process retrieves transactions based on calendar date, not VAT Reporting period. So, if you want to reconcile the VAT Return Report to the relevant general ledger accounts, you must run a balance on these accounts based on the same calendar dates, not VAT Reporting periods.

The qualifying conditions for the report generation process are:

  • If the Include Earlier Unreported Transactions checkbox is deselected, only those transactions dated within the qualifying period are included.
  • If the Include Earlier Unreported Transactions checkbox is selected, transactions dated earlier than the qualifying period are also included.
  • Transactions already "reported in full" are excluded. In a cash accounting setting, transactions are retrieved based on the latest cash matching history date falling on or before the period end date.
  • The relevant tax codes must exist. Transactions with incomplete Tax Box and Net Box values on the tax code are excluded. You must ensure that these settings are compatible.

Setting Up Tax Calculations

Calculating Reverse Charging

To correctly calculate your reverse charging, update your tax codes:

  1. Click the Tax Codes tab.
  2. View a list of your tax codes and click Go.
  3. Click Edit next to the tax code to update.
  4. In the System Information section, click the Tax Box to display the box options, then select a box number.
  5. Click the Net Box then select a box number.
  6. Click Save.

Working with Output Tax on Payable Invoices

You can treat output tax on payable invoices in the same way as output tax on sales. For example:

  • Where the tax line is derived from the VAT Output type, select Box 1 for the Tax Box and Box 6 for the Net Box.
  • Where the tax line is derived from the VAT Input type, select Box 4 for the Tax Box and Box 7 for the Net Box.
Note:

The Box 1 and Box 6 values from payable invoices might be negative but are shown as positive.

Creating a Tax Journal

When creating a journal, if you want both the tax amount and the taxable amount to appear on the VAT Return, you must create a tax line with the following information:

  • For Line type, select Tax Code
  • In Item field enter your tax code
  • In Value enter the tax amount
  • In Taxable Value enter the net amount
  • Tax Analysis is populated automatically with the tax code
  • [Optional] In Account field enter the account name. This appears on the VAT Reported Transaction.

This ensures that both the home value and the home taxable value on the resulting transaction will appear in the appropriate boxes on the VAT Return according to the configuration of the tax code.

If the tax analysis section of the journal's tax line isn't filled in, the VAT Return still includes the home value in the relevant tax box but nothing in the net box.

Note:
The VAT Return in cash accounting mode does not support journals.

Generating a VAT Return Report

You can generate a VAT return report for a single company or for a group of companies.

Single Company VAT Return Report

To generate a VAT Return Report:

  1. Reconcile or delete the previous VAT Return report because only one can be generated at a time:
    1. Click the VAT Return Reports tab.
    2. Click the Period link.
    3. Click Reconcile or Delete.
  2. Either:
    • Click the link to go back to the list of Vat Return Reports, then click New VAT Return Report.
    • Click the VAT Return Reports tab, then click New.
  3. The Period field is a free-format field, so enter a period reference such as 02 11 or Q2 2011.
  4. Enter a Period Start Date. The default, if there is one, is the previous end date +1 day.
  5. Enter a Period End Date. The default is the last day of the third month after the start date.
    Note:

    Make sure that your period dates do not overlap with VAT return reports that have already been generated.

  6. Select Single company from the Single/Group options.
  7. Select Standard VAT Accounting or Cash VAT Accounting from the Type options.
  8. [Optional] To restrict the search for qualifying transactions to the selected period only, clear the Include Earlier Unreported Transactions checkbox. By default, the search for qualifying transactions extends to earlier dates.
  9. [Optional] Use the Comments section to enter any additional details.
  10. Click Generate. This initiates a batch Apex job that generates your VAT Return Report. You are notified by email of the success or failure of this operation.

Group of Companies VAT Return Report

Note:

For a group VAT return the type of return is always Standard VAT Accounting. Cash VAT Accounting is not available for a VAT group.

To generate a VAT Return Report:

  1. Reconcile or delete the previous VAT Return report because only one can be generated at a time:
    1. Click the VAT Return Reports tab.
    2. Click the Period link.
    3. Click Reconcile or Delete.
  2. Either:
    • Click the link to go back to the list of Vat Return Reports, then click New VAT Return Report.
    • Click the VAT Return Reports tab, then click New.
  3. The Period field is a free-format field, so enter a period reference such as 02 11 or Q2 2011.
  4. Enter a Period Start Date. The default, if there is one, is the previous end date +1 day.
  5. Enter a Period End Date. The default is the last day of the third month after the start date.
    Note:

    Make sure that your period dates do not overlap with VAT return reports that have already been generated.

  6. Select Group of companies from the Single/Group options.
  7. [Optional] To restrict the search for qualifying transactions to the selected period only, clear the Include Earlier Unreported Transactions checkbox. By default, the search for qualifying transactions extends to earlier dates.
  8. [Optional] Use the Select Group lookup to select the relevant group.
  9. Click Generate. This initiates a batch Apex job that generates your VAT Return Report. You are notified by email of the success or failure of this operation.
Note:

The time taken to generate a report for a group of companies can take two or three minutes. This is based on a sample of 25 companies in the group with a total of 2,500,000 transaction line items. The exact time depends on platform performance.

Viewing a VAT Return Report

To view the generated VAT Return report:

  1. Click the VAT Returns Report tab.
  2. Select the report that you want to see by clicking its period reference. The report's detail page is displayed. The lower part of the page displays some of the information you need to begin preparing your tax return.
  3. Click the View Report link to the right of any box to see the corresponding breakdown report.
  4. [Optional] If you need to make any amendments to your return report you can go back and make any changes required. When you have made the amendments, display the report's detail page again and click Refresh.
  5. [Optional] If you need to print a copy of your VAT return report, click Print.
  6. [Optional] Click the EC Sales List link to view the EC Sales List report.

Note: The breakdown report is subject to Salesforce reporting limits. If necessary, export the report to Excel to see the full report.

VAT Return Batch Settings

Some aspects of Accounting are controlled by custom settings. You must be signed in with system administrator permissions to perform these tasks. See the Salesforce Help for information on how to maintain custom settings.

The VAT Return Batch Setting (FF) custom setting enables you to customize the VAT return report and set the batch size used by the background report generating process.

  1. From Setup, click Develop | Custom Settings | VAT Reporting Settings (FF). Using Lightning ExperienceClosed Click | Setup | Custom Code | Custom Settings | VAT Reporting Settings (FF).
  2. Click Manage | Edit.
  3. In the VAT Return Generator Batch Scope field edit the scope size for the VAT Return Generator process.

Viewing Transaction Line Items Included in VAT Reports

Use Action Views to view transaction line items that have been included in VAT reports:

  1. Create a dataview where Transaction Line Item is the primary object.
  2. Create a relationship join to the VAT Reported Transactions custom object.
  3. Use the Transaction Line ID field on the primary object as the Key.

For more information about Action Views, see the VAT Reporting Reporting help.

Deleting a VAT Return Report

Note: You can only delete a VAT return report with a status of Generated.

To delete a VAT return report:

  1. Go to the VAT Return Report detail page.
  2. Click Delete on the VAT Return Report detail page. A warning message displays.
  3. Click Confirm.

The VAT Return Report and the related VAT Reported Transactions are deleted.

Reconciling a VAT Return Report

If you want to reconcile but not submit to HMRC, select the checkbox titled "I want to reconcile this report without submitting to HMRC".

When you are ready to reconcile an existing VAT Return report, click Reconcile on the VAT Return Report Detail page. This is a once-only operation that you cannot reverse.

Using Standard Salesforce Reporting

You can use standard Salesforce reporting to create custom reports based on the VAT Reported Transactions custom object.