Boring Boring Accounting Question about VAT and which system to buy?????

[MellowMa]

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Recommend quickbooks - but I use a spreadsheet that I devised myself.

What sort of business is it and what's the turnover?

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If you don't have a lot of costs it might be better to join the flat rate scheme

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Quickbooks would be ideal then - it's fantastic for small businesses.

I've used it for a few clients now - the beauty of it for me is that you can delete things without having to JE which you can't do with a lot of software.

Have you spoken to your accountants about it? I know some don't like it as they don't run a copy of it in the office but they should still be able to work from printouts anyway.

I like Quickbooks & it is easy to use. I also use Sage which is ok.

What sort of business?

If for eg you are selling people's time rather than a product and therefore most of your costs lie in salaries, you can join the flat rate scheme where you for eg charge 17.5% vat but only pay 13% over to the revenue. It is cost effective if you don't have a lot of costs and cuts down massively on the admin overhead. Of course you still need to record costs for corporation tax purposes

Agreed with Wisteria. My favourite thing about QB is that you can back & edit stuff.

look here this tells you

Flat rate is where you pay a smaller amount of VAT out to HMCE so for instance 12.5% for management companies (it is different for all businesses) and you don't have to account for VAT on purchases then, less work.

If you have bought a decent amount of equipment over the last 3 years you are probably better of doing it the normal way for a few months and see where you are, then transferring to the flat rate later on, maybe next year.

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nonono
you always charge 17.5%

Flat rate scheme just means you don't have to submit a detailed VAT return, you just pay over whatever percentage

TEll me what the business does, that will decide if you shoudl considerit

I think that accountz one is intuit too so sounds quite good- the free lifetime support sounds quite good and it's cheap - try googling it for some reviews first, hope all goes well anyway.

No - I think I'm right CD - what I am talking about is the scheme where you pay a percentage to HMRC so you still charge your customers 17.5% but then when you submit your VAT return you pay 12.5% not 17.5% to the revenue and don't have to subtract your purchases from it so less work.

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Yes we are talking about the same thing

my nono was to mellowma's boss who was saying that they have to charge 17.5%, I was just saying that you still do that under the flat rate scheme but pay over a lower percentsag

ok

Does he supply materials or do the clients buy them

If the latter then he should look at flat rate scheme as a possibility as he won't have many costs.

His accountant shoudl advise him

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Flat rate is 8.5% for your industry.

oh CD sorry - crossed wires

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