Review and reconcile your VAT Return

Before producing your VAT Return you should review and reconcile the figures contained in it.

Review your VAT Return and reports

You can view and print the contents of the VAT Return VAT report at any time during a VAT period to review your VAT liability. A regular review can help you identify incorrectly posted transactions, transactions where the VAT registration number or the details are missing, and make any corrections.

We recommend that you do this on a regular basis to keep control of your cash flow. A review would also help you to identify transactions that have been incorrectly posted.

You can review two aspects of the VAT Return:

  • The sales and purchases assigned to individual VAT rates.

  • The figures that will be printed on your current VAT Return.

We recommend that you reconcile your VAT transactions before you produce your final VAT Return for the period.

Print the transactions included on the VAT Return (or report) for review

Open: Revenue and Submissions > VAT Analysis

  1. Select the Current Period Totals tab.
  2. Click Print.

Print a copy of your VAT Return (or report) for review

This prints a copy of the VAT Transaction (Education) report (Purchase Transaction Details for VAT126), as well as the standard VAT Return (which is not required by most schools). Use this to check the VAT report before you finalise it. As you can't reprint the final VAT report, it's a good idea to print if first for your records.

Tip: When you come to prepare the VAT126, it's a good idea to send the VAT transactions (Education) report to Excel, so you can make any changes. When you view the report, click Report to Excel to send the report to Excel. You can then make any changes in Excel before you prepare and submit the VAT126. You submit the VAT126 to HMRC directly, not using Sage 200.

This prints a copy of the VAT Return and the details of the vatable transactions included in the return. Use this to check the VAT Return before you finalise it.

Open: Revenue and Submissions > VAT Analysis

  1. Select the Current Period Return tab.
  2. The details of the current VAT Return are displayed.

  3. To view the transactions that make up the totals boxes 1-9 click on the blue underlined total.

    The VAT Breakdown window is displayed. This contains a list of the transactions that make up the VAT Return total, split by their tax code. To display the list of transactions for a particular code, select the tax code from the list in the top of the window.

  4. To print the VAT ReturnVAT Transaction (Education) report and transaction reports, click Print.

    Note: This is not a finalised VAT Return. Depending on when you produce the final VAT Return for the period, the figures may change.

    The following reports are printed:

    • The VAT Transaction (Education) report (Purchase Transaction Details for VAT126).

      This report contains the details of your VAT transactions which you can use for your VAT126, that you send to your LEA or the HMRC (for academies).

      As you can't reprint the report, we recommend that you keep a copy for your records.

      The report shows purchase transaction details for your supplier invoices and credit notes, showing the transaction date, supplier's VAT registration, to whom addressed, VAT paid, and the transaction URN.

    • A copy of the VAT Return, either the VAT 100 or VAT 3 form (not required by most schools).
    • The VAT Transactions - Codes Included in the VAT Return report.

      This shows a list of all the transactions whose values are included in the boxes on the preview VAT Return.

    • The VAT Transactions - Codes Not Included in the VAT Return report.

      This shows a list of transactions not included in the VAT Return. These are excluded because the VAT code for these transactions has been set to not be included in a VAT Return.

Print the sales and purchases by VAT rate reports

To reconcile your VAT, you check the transactions included in your VAT Return against Vatable transactions in the Sales, Purchase and Nominal Ledgers. You can use these reports to perform the VAT reconciliation:

  • Print the sales (customer) Vatable Transactions report.

    Customers > Customer Reports > Account Analysis > Vatable Transactions

  • Print the purchases (supplier) Vatable Transactions report.

    Suppliers > Supplier Reports > Account Analysis > Vatable Transactions

  • Print the Nominal Non-trading Vatable Transactions report.

    Nominal > Nominal Reports > Account Analysis > Non-trading Vatable Transactions

To reconcile your VAT

  1. On the VAT Return Transactions report highlight the net output and input totals, and the VAT input and output totals for each VAT code.

  2. Compare these to the combined totals of three reports:
    • Sales (customer) Vatable Transaction report.
    • Purchases (supplier) Vatable Transaction report.
    • The Nominal Non-trading Vatable Transactions report.

The totals for the individual Vatable Transactions reports, when added together, should equal the input and output totals on your VAT Return Transactions report.

Next steps

For Ireland and Northern Ireland only:

  • If you supply goods to customers in the EU, you need to submit an EC Sales List to HMRC or the Irish Revenue. You can then produce and submit your VAT Return for the period.
  • If you do not supply goods to customers in the EU, or have already submitted the EC Sales List for this month, then you can produce and submit your VAT Return for the period.

See EC Sales List (ESL) or VIES return.

Note - information

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