Tax return

Read the return for a quarter or a month

1. Open Reports, and press Tax return in the list of reports.
2. Choose the Period: last quarter, this quarter, a month, this year — or Any two days…, then Show.
3. Read the tiles: Tax on sales, Tax to reclaim, and what is owed or to reclaim.
4. Read the rows By rate, and By box on the return where your rates name their boxes.
5. Press any figure to see the entries behind it, each opening on its own page.

Then: The tax on sales is what customers paid you as tax, which you owe. The tax to reclaim is the tax you paid on purchases and can claim back. The difference is owed to the tax authority, or reclaimed from it. Rates for what is outside the tax are shown and left out of the totals. Excel, CSV and PDF download exactly what is on screen.

Who: Whoever reads the unit's book reads its return. Marking it filed and recording the payment need Record money at the unit.

For July to September, Meridian's Boston office charged 1,800.00 VAT on its sales and paid 420.00 VAT on supplies it can reclaim: the return says 1,380.00 is owed to the tax authority.

Check the return agrees with the accounts

1. Read the line under the tiles: it says Reconciles only when the tax accounts hold, to the cent, the tax of every return less what was paid over.
2. Where it does not, it says by how much and why: tax on the accounts not tagged to a rate, or tax posted into a period already paid.
3. Press See them to see the entries not tagged to a rate — posted before this release, or by hand — and deal with them before you file.
4. For tax posted into a paid period, press Record an adjustment.

Then: The balance of the tax accounts at the period's end is held against what every return's tax and every payment's own figures say it should be, read apart, so a hand-made entry, a payment whose entry differs, or tax left behind a payment each make it say so.

Mark the period filed

1. Choose the period you filed with the tax authority, once it has ended.
2. Press Mark as filed.
3. Type The authority's reference, if it gave you one.
4. If the sheet shows tax on the accounts not tagged to a rate, check the box to say you have dealt with it.
5. Press Mark as filed.

Then: The return's figures, and its boxes, are kept as they were filed: a rate's boxes changed later never change what this filing said. Nothing is locked: the month has its own close on Periods. Anybody who later posts an entry with tax dated inside the period is told, and the return then shows what changed since it was filed, with the entries posted since, so you can tell the authority with your next return.

Rather not? Marked by mistake? Press Withdraw the filing, say why, and press Withdraw it. The filing stays on the record, said withdrawn.

Record paying the tax, or a refund

1. Choose the period.
2. Press Record the payment.
3. Type the Amount, as the bank's statement says it: what actually left the bank, or came into it. It starts as the return's figure — as filed, where it was filed.
4. Choose the account it was Paid from, or the refund came into.
5. Give the day under On, and a Reference if there is one.
6. Press Record it.

Then: One balanced entry clears the period's tax from the tax accounts: the tax owed comes down, the tax to reclaim comes down, and the difference leaves the bank — or comes into it, for a refund. The tile then says Paid or Refunded. Tax posted into the period afterwards shows as more to pay or to receive: press Record an adjustment to settle it with a second entry, beside the first.

Rather not? Recorded by mistake? Press Undo the payment or Undo the adjustment, say why, and press Undo it. Its entry is reversed, on the record.

Grace pays the 1,380.00 for July to September from the main bank account on October 28 and records it: the VAT accounts for the quarter come to nothing, and the bank's line matches the entry.