Anyone help with a VAT question? <Boring sorry>

[fannybanjo]

Sorry the most INCREDIBLY boring MN thread EVER but anyone who does their own VAT returns etc - do you have to do it at a specific time (ie end of month or quarterly). I haven't a clue and our new business has just received VAT registration and need to know!

Would this be of use?

You have three months from the incorporation to file your VAT returns. The taxable period is those first three months and you are then given one month to actually file it with HMRC.

Is this what you had in mind?

When you get the form, it will tell you the periodit covers e.g. 1st Sept to 30 November, and it will tell you whne it has to be submitted.
Please try not to panic. It will be o.k.
If not, i'll do it for you, for free !!!

Thanks everyone! I didn't realise that HMRC send you the form out and then you have a month to send it back, I thought I had to do it off my own back.

Grrr, this running a business is hard bloody work! Especially with 3 little ones.

Exactly as Oblomov says. Quite straightforward. If I were more organised, I'd have an ongoing spread sheeet that I would enter data into as I paid bills and was paid.

But....

obviously I'm not (), so I have a mad dash through my (not properly organised) paperwork about 2 days before the deadline, it takes me aobut an hour to get it sorted, and then it's done.

Honestly not difficult, once you have the thing set up.....

Sign up to pay VAT on-line (you may have done this already) - I think they send you reminders by email.

Here's some unrequested advice from someone who cocked up on more than one occasion in the past: GET SOME ACCOUNTING SOFTWARE AND PUT EVERYTHING INTO IT AS A MATTER OF ROUTINE! You don't want to have to sit down with a big pile of invoices, expenses etc at the end of the quarter and put them in, in a mad rush.

I used Microsoft Small Business Accounting Express (free!) for this, when I was running my own business.

www.msofficeaccounting.co.uk/

And if you do follow that link, you'll find they just discontinued it.