ICAS' website has just posted the following advice on contacting HMRC about MTD :
The information we have received indicates that there are usually around 100 HMRC staff available for helplines. When lines are busy – caller numbers far exceed staff - then you will hear a ‘busy’ message and Intelligent Telephony may be activated.
The HMRC Intelligent Telephony has not been able to identify the word ‘MTD’ though it may recognise VAT. It is therefore unlikely that the voice recognition system will currently take you to the correct team within HMRC.
Unfortunately, when lines are busy, your call may be abruptly terminated.
............and HMRC has the audacity to call us customers.
Words fail me !!
ICAS' website has just posted the following advice on contacting HMRC about MTD :
The information we have received indicates that there are usually around 100 HMRC staff available for helplines. When lines are busy – caller numbers far exceed staff - then you will hear a ‘busy’ message and Intelligent Telephony may be activated.
The HMRC Intelligent Telephony has not been able to identify the word ‘MTD’ though it may recognise VAT. It is therefore unlikely that the voice recognition system will currently take you to the correct team within HMRC.
Unfortunately, when lines are busy, your call may be abruptly terminated.
............and HMRC has the audacity to call us customers.
Words fail me !!
.........clearly HMRC have no idea how to make tax digital. God help us all as we launch into MTD. I have never felt more like a lemming than I do now !
I strongly disagree with 1 less Worry's prediction that spreadsheets are on the way out. They are one of the greatest tools of the computer age and they are undoubtedly here to stay.
And as for advising that 'we all need to get more tech savvy' please don't presume that the accounting community who favour spreadsheets over cloud accounting for their smaller business clients are not fully up to speed with accounting software and are clinging to spreadsheets out of ignorance.
The fact of the matter is that cloud accounting and software accounting packages have many shortcomings in comparison to spreadsheets, to list but a few :
a) Spreadsheets are universal and are effectively free to use with no monthly subscriptions to pay for the rest of your business life.
b) Spreadsheets are flexible and can be easily tailored to individual businesses needs.
c) I have never encountered any compatibility issues with spreadsheets and can still open and work on spreadsheets saved years ago. With spreadsheets I have no worries about keeping accessible records for HMRC's prescribed six years. Try doing that with the last six years of Sage accounting files !
d) Spreadsheets need very little explanation and are straight forward and simple for clients to use with minimal coaching. Accounting packages require some understand of double entry bookkeeping, take significantly longer to learn to use properly and are more likely to generate time-consuming requests for help and support from struggling clients.
e) With spreadsheets the 'double entry' of transactions is clearly visible on a single page using simple columnar analysis, making it very quick and easy to spot and correcting misposting errors. With accounting packages you have to trawl through individual nominal accounts and transaction reports on many different pages to find and correct misposting errors . This is by far more time-consuming and frustrating than correcting spreadsheet errors.
f) Accounting packages come with a misconception for the unskilled bookkeeper that everything is correct and the 'books are balanced'. The reality is often very different. When errors arise it can be a very time consuming exercise to establish the correct closing ledger balances to enable the accurate roll forward of an accounting package to the following financial year. This has the potential to lead to fee pressure and considerable job frustration. Spreadsheets avoid many of the time consuming problems inherent in the roll-forward function built into accounting packages as you simply start afresh with a new spreadsheet for the next quarter or financial year.
g) Spreadsheets are used offline so no dependency on the vagaries of the internet as with cloud accounting.
.........I could go on.
All in all, for small business clients with limited bookkeeping skills, spreadsheets get my vote every time and I, for one, have no intention of bullying my clients into using accounting software packages they don't need, would struggle to use correctly, and have no desire to pay for month after month.
I have registered my interest with Filemyvat return who look like they may be one of the best bets to source bridging software and I eagerly await the launch of their product but I am greatly concerned by their current timescale.
The email I received from Filemyvatreturn last week states :
'We are working closely with HMRC for a solution to the MTD issue surrounding filing the VAT return whilst using spreadsheets.
Over the next few months we will be testing our website and excel add-in which can be integrated to any existing multi-tab spreadsheet in order to file the VAT return to the government gateway. We hope to have this ready for you in the new year !'
As January is maxed out with self-assessment tax returns this timescale is impossibly tight.
When will HMRC come to their senses and recognise that they are asking too much, too soon, from the software and small business community ? Why can't they see the inevitable train crash we are all heading into under the current MTD timetable ??
Yet another podcast where those of us who do not wish to migrate from spreadsheets to cloud accounting are spoken about as if we are second class accountants.
I switched off when they started banging on about spreadsheets that 'don't add up'.
Let's face it, we are never going to get an honest discussion about bridging software from cloud accounting providers such as Sage. Turkeys don't vote for Christmas.
My answers
And good luck trying to get any help from HMRC.
ICAS' website has just posted the following advice on contacting HMRC about MTD :
The information we have received indicates that there are usually around 100 HMRC staff available for helplines. When lines are busy – caller numbers far exceed staff - then you will hear a ‘busy’ message and Intelligent Telephony may be activated.
The HMRC Intelligent Telephony has not been able to identify the word ‘MTD’ though it may recognise VAT. It is therefore unlikely that the voice recognition system will currently take you to the correct team within HMRC.
Unfortunately, when lines are busy, your call may be abruptly terminated.
............and HMRC has the audacity to call us customers.
Words fail me !!
And good luck trying to get any help from HMRC.
ICAS' website has just posted the following advice on contacting HMRC about MTD :
The information we have received indicates that there are usually around 100 HMRC staff available for helplines. When lines are busy – caller numbers far exceed staff - then you will hear a ‘busy’ message and Intelligent Telephony may be activated.
The HMRC Intelligent Telephony has not been able to identify the word ‘MTD’ though it may recognise VAT. It is therefore unlikely that the voice recognition system will currently take you to the correct team within HMRC.
Unfortunately, when lines are busy, your call may be abruptly terminated.
............and HMRC has the audacity to call us customers.
Words fail me !!
Undoubtedly misselling, but none of us has the time or energy to report to Trading Standards.
Those of us who stuck to our spreadsheet guns have been predicting this would happen since the advent of MTD.
Don't say you weren't warned that the view from the cloud would not be pretty !
.........clearly HMRC have no idea how to make tax digital. God help us all as we launch into MTD. I have never felt more like a lemming than I do now !
I'm certainly in no hurry to sign my clients up to MTD.
If we all join forces, and refuse to sign up to this chaos, HMRC will have to take notice.
This only reinforces my decision not to sign up any of my clients to MTD ....... I say we ask Brussels for an extension !
I strongly disagree with 1 less Worry's prediction that spreadsheets are on the way out. They are one of the greatest tools of the computer age and they are undoubtedly here to stay.
And as for advising that 'we all need to get more tech savvy' please don't presume that the accounting community who favour spreadsheets over cloud accounting for their smaller business clients are not fully up to speed with accounting software and are clinging to spreadsheets out of ignorance.
The fact of the matter is that cloud accounting and software accounting packages have many shortcomings in comparison to spreadsheets, to list but a few :
a) Spreadsheets are universal and are effectively free to use with no monthly subscriptions to pay for the rest of your business life.
b) Spreadsheets are flexible and can be easily tailored to individual businesses needs.
c) I have never encountered any compatibility issues with spreadsheets and can still open and work on spreadsheets saved years ago. With spreadsheets I have no worries about keeping accessible records for HMRC's prescribed six years. Try doing that with the last six years of Sage accounting files !
d) Spreadsheets need very little explanation and are straight forward and simple for clients to use with minimal coaching. Accounting packages require some understand of double entry bookkeeping, take significantly longer to learn to use properly and are more likely to generate time-consuming requests for help and support from struggling clients.
e) With spreadsheets the 'double entry' of transactions is clearly visible on a single page using simple columnar analysis, making it very quick and easy to spot and correcting misposting errors. With accounting packages you have to trawl through individual nominal accounts and transaction reports on many different pages to find and correct misposting errors . This is by far more time-consuming and frustrating than correcting spreadsheet errors.
f) Accounting packages come with a misconception for the unskilled bookkeeper that everything is correct and the 'books are balanced'. The reality is often very different. When errors arise it can be a very time consuming exercise to establish the correct closing ledger balances to enable the accurate roll forward of an accounting package to the following financial year. This has the potential to lead to fee pressure and considerable job frustration. Spreadsheets avoid many of the time consuming problems inherent in the roll-forward function built into accounting packages as you simply start afresh with a new spreadsheet for the next quarter or financial year.
g) Spreadsheets are used offline so no dependency on the vagaries of the internet as with cloud accounting.
.........I could go on.
All in all, for small business clients with limited bookkeeping skills, spreadsheets get my vote every time and I, for one, have no intention of bullying my clients into using accounting software packages they don't need, would struggle to use correctly, and have no desire to pay for month after month.
I have registered my interest with Filemyvat return who look like they may be one of the best bets to source bridging software and I eagerly await the launch of their product but I am greatly concerned by their current timescale.
The email I received from Filemyvatreturn last week states :
'We are working closely with HMRC for a solution to the MTD issue surrounding filing the VAT return whilst using spreadsheets.
Over the next few months we will be testing our website and excel add-in which can be integrated to any existing multi-tab spreadsheet in order to file the VAT return to the government gateway. We hope to have this ready for you in the new year !'
As January is maxed out with self-assessment tax returns this timescale is impossibly tight.
When will HMRC come to their senses and recognise that they are asking too much, too soon, from the software and small business community ? Why can't they see the inevitable train crash we are all heading into under the current MTD timetable ??
Yet another podcast where those of us who do not wish to migrate from spreadsheets to cloud accounting are spoken about as if we are second class accountants.
I switched off when they started banging on about spreadsheets that 'don't add up'.
Let's face it, we are never going to get an honest discussion about bridging software from cloud accounting providers such as Sage. Turkeys don't vote for Christmas.