MTD and the recording of daily till sales

No easy way of importing daily sales. Does this proposal meet the requirements?

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I have a client whose POS tills for the retail parts of their operations are capable of producing a myriad of reports; most of which are useless and the ones really needed are missing.  A method of importing the sales into the accounting system has been developed but this is the monthly total by product rather than daily sales total for each income heading.

This is fine for internal reporting purposes and works well. However I am conscious that HMRC expect daily sales totals to be recorded.

There is a report, not suitable for import, which does record the daily sales by product. Is it sufficient for MTD/HMRC purposes just to save this report so there is a record of daily sales available even though it is not linked directly to the accounting records?

Replies (8)

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By Roland195
28th Oct 2019 15:28

I wouldn't be loosing sleep over it. HMRC will not know this is the case unless they happen to enquire and then I can't see what exactly they would try to penalise the client for - electronic records are being maintained although with a slight formatting issue.

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By paulwakefield1
28th Oct 2019 16:12

Thank you. That was the conclusion I was moving towards but it is good to have a second opinion.

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By johnhemming
28th Oct 2019 16:51

If you are importing the figures rather than retyping them and the original records can go back to individual transactions the system from which the figures are imported can be considered as part of the digital records with a digital link to the summary figures which are then compliant.

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Replying to johnhemming:
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By paulwakefield1
28th Oct 2019 17:30

Very difficult to get back to individual transaction level. In effect there is one file of transactions which integrate into the accounting system that records sales by product for the month and a secondary file which does not integrate but which holds the month's sales totals by day and is reconcilable to the linked file.

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Replying to paulwakefield1:
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By johnhemming
28th Oct 2019 18:15

I would need to look at the underlying data structures to work this out, but you are clearly in arguable territory. You are, after all, not proposing to retype the data. It might be worth asking HMRC.

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Replying to johnhemming:
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By paulwakefield1
28th Oct 2019 19:25

I agree it's a bit borderline. But, as you say, there is no rekeying and the data held in the accounting system is reconcilable to the daily sales totals. It is a relatively small part of the client's operations so I think we will take the risk and argue the toss with HMRC if it ever comes to it.

Still got one small system to integrate which will be relatively simple and one big one to review (although I think it is OK). The others had already been done pre MTD thank heavens.

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By AJF499
28th Oct 2019 23:58

I have this situation for several retail clients and I simply create a monthly invoice in Xero, splitting the transactions totals amongst the correct VAT rates, and attach the monthly summary and individual transaction list from the POS system which agrees to the invoice total.

They have had VAT inspections and no one from HMRC has said that this way is incorrect so I am carrying on that way.

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Replying to AJF499:
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By johnhemming
29th Oct 2019 07:21

Given that the regulations on digital links are not currently in force and will not be until 1st April even if you have had an inspection since MTD came in it would not find that an incorrect way.

I am pretty certain that the OP can argue that digital links already exist that link the daily sales totals to the figures posted in the overall accounting system. If the OP wants me to talk about this on the phone looking in more detail at the technical aspects my email address is [email protected]

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