Recent MTD update questioned Till printouts?

A recent AAT update on MTD said you could not manually type in Till reports for shops - ???

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On a recent AAT update on MTD, we were told you could no longer simply type in the totals for the end of day till reports for shops.  The speaker was insistent that it was now necessary to make a digital link between the till report and the accounting software.  He seemed to think it's okay to type in daily till reports, but really really not okay to type in one printout for the VAT quarter.  He insisted that any modern till will produce CSV reports - which is probably correct, but the report contains a whole sheet of figures, of which I need just a few lines, sales at zero, sale at standard and total VAT

Since one of the main aims of MTD is to reduce errors, surely it is better to type in one report a quarter than 90 daily reports??    after all, we're typing in all the purchase invoces, 

Many of us who do regular book-keeping for shops were very unclear about this, and wonder  how you guys intend to get till reports into the accounting software. 

Your comments would be much appreciated by a confused bunch of bookkeepers

 

 

 

 

 

Replies (18)

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By Duggimon
18th Oct 2018 17:00

Your underlying records must be daily sales figures. Those daily sales figures must be digitally linked to the submission totals.

The main aim of MTD is not to reduce costs, it's to gather more information in order to better automate tax investigations and reduce HMRC overheads.

edit: somehow misread "errors" as "costs". That argument doesn't hold water though since once you're done entering your daily amounts you can check your total against the quarterly one.

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JCACE
By jcace
18th Oct 2018 16:06

Per VAT Notice 700/22 "if you account for VAT using a retail scheme you must keep a digital record of your Daily Gross Takings (DGT). You are not required to keep a separate record of the supplies that make up your DGT within functional compatible software."
I see no requirement for the till records to be digitally linked to accounting software, but I would consider that the digital records need the daily totals inputting, not weekly, monthly or quarterly, unless this could be done via a digital link.

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Replying to jcace:
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By Wanderer
18th Oct 2018 16:16

jcace wrote:
... but I would consider that the digital records need the daily totals inputting, not weekly, monthly or quarterly, unless this could be done via a digital link.

And the digital records can include a spreadsheet that has the daily gross takings which then can be imported into an accounting package on a weekly, monthly or quarterly basis.
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Replying to jcace:
By buttercup books
18th Oct 2018 17:54

[quote=jcace]

Per VAT Notice 700/22 "if you account for VAT using a retail scheme you must keep a digital record of your Daily Gross Takings (DGT). You are not required to keep a separate record of the supplies that make up your DGT within functional compatible software."

I dragged myself through that, I read that section about retail schemes as referring to special schemes where normal accounting couldn't be done - eg marginal schemes - am I wrong?

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Replying to buttercup books:
By Duggimon
19th Oct 2018 08:44

Yes, you're wrong. The retail scheme allows you to calculate VAT on your daily sales totals instead of per sale. If you're balking at entering daily figures just imagine how much worse it could be without that!

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RedFive
By RedFive
18th Oct 2018 16:24

Yes daily totals input to 'functional compatible software' - QuickBooks online in my case.

The till receipts / Z1's etc do NOT have to be digital in themselves but the daily total that is input does. That could be Excel if you use bridging software.

Some clients I just input a weekly total from the Z1's or monthly from an excel sheet but post MTD will be inputting daily totals.

About an extra 10 mins per month, reckon I can get few quid for it, not just the software houses rubbing their hands at this ;-)

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By buttercup books
18th Oct 2018 17:58

---"About an extra 10 mins per month, reckon I can get few quid for it, not just the software houses rubbing their hands at this "

you must be a wizard if you can take a carrier bag of "Z"s tangled up like a bag of spaghetti and input them in 10 mins per month - it takes hours, and then you have to start tracking down the missing ones - grrrrr - blooming HMRC

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Replying to buttercup books:
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By puzzel
18th Oct 2018 20:23

Hmmm,
if you set up a spreadsheet correctly, it will not matter if you are missing a day's takings (Z reading) as your spreadsheet will work it out.
Read the Z reading's it will in general show you the start and end figure, the difference being the daily takings. That is unless they are using a second till

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Replying to puzzel:
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By bendybod
22nd Oct 2018 12:19

But it won't tell you what the split of VAT rates is - or certainly my client's won't.

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By djn24
22nd Oct 2018 09:40

This is going to be a right pain.
Will be quite time consuming unless we can force clients to be far more organised.

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Tornado
By Tornado
22nd Oct 2018 12:31

It has always been the case that if you have an electronic till, then the till records are treated as part of your accounting records for HMRC inspection. Otherwise, hand generated sales records are OK, and many people still opt for this as it is much less hassle to them than the electronic devices.

As for linking till data electronically to accounting software .... I think this would be another area where there are likely to be significant errors arising. Yes, it is easy to do for those that understand these things, but it is highly baffling for those that do not.

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By matthew pennifold
22nd Oct 2018 17:48

Anyone having trouble getting daily sales figures for shops that are just open at night-time?

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By buttercup books
23rd Oct 2018 07:50

I use Sage 50 for most shops. I don't know how you could import or digitally link a till CSV to it. The import list on Sage is very limited. I will attempt to phone EPOS and see what they suggest, this is going to be a huge problem if our only two options are 1) digitally link or 2) type in daily totals

Sage are you listening - what are your suggestions?

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Replying to buttercup books:
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By paulwakefield1
23rd Oct 2018 09:29

Importing into Sage is straightforward ONCE it is set up.

I don't know what the EPOS exports are like but, assuming they need a bit of tidying up,use Excel to get it into the correct format (Power Query aka Get and transform is ideal for this). Export the csv data and import into Sage.

Use something like Adept's modules if the standrard templates do not give the flexibility needed.

It sounds like a lot but virtually all of it can be automated

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By buttercup books
24th Oct 2018 11:02

Thank you for your reply,
but what do you import it into SAGE as, this is the list of imports templates available, and you wouldn't want to import as any of those - your help is much appreciated BB

Available templates:
◾Audit Trail Transaction FULL template.xls
◾Customer Record FULL template.xls
◾Fixed Asset Record FULL template.xls
◾Nominal Record FULL template.xls
◾Project Record FULL template.xls
◾Project Transaction FULL template.xls
◾Stock Record FULL template.xls
◾Stock Transactions FULL template.xls
◾Supplier Record FULL template.xls

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Replying to buttercup books:
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By paulwakefield1
24th Oct 2018 14:08

To be honest, for till imports, I have always used the Adept csv import module as the particular client who has multiple import requirements already had it for other reasons when they computerised their tills.

However for a straightforward import with no Sales ledger requirement, I would have thought that the Audit Trail template would handle it.

I will experiment tomorrow and let you know.

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Replying to paulwakefield1:
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By paulwakefield1
24th Oct 2018 20:06

I have tried out an import from csv till data direct into Sage using the audit trail transaction template and it seems to work fine. Hope that gives you some encouragement.

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By buttercup books
15th Nov 2018 15:26

Sorry for the delay, up to my neck in VAT returns in October -

Sage have a MTD article running- copied in part below, but - if they are correct, and I read them correctly, it means we don't have to establish a digital link before April 2020 - if that's right, I'm happy to let someone solve the problem -

Sage say -
HMRC’s latest draft MTD VAT notice states that, while the complete set of digital records to meet MTD requirements do not all have to held be in one place or programme, there must be a digital link between these pieces of software used.
Once finalised, this section of the draft VAT notice will be given force of law and will therefore be a mandatory requirement. The rule applies to VAT periods starting on or after 1 April 2020.
https://www.sage.com/en-gb/blog/making-tax-digital-businesses/?utm_campa... - taken 15/11/2018

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