Frequently Asked Question

No.

It is important that the VAT Return sheet that you download from the App isn’t renamed / changed from what it is called when it’s downloaded.

When you upload the VAT Return back to the App, the App is looking for the sheet/tab with the specific sheet name “VAT Return” to process it. That’s how it knows to ignore the other sheets in the spreadsheet.

So, if the VAT Return sheet isn’t called exactly VAT Return, then it won’t recognise it and you won’t be able to submit your VAT Return.

Also,

If you have more than one VAT Return sheet downloaded into the same accounts spreadsheet, the App will process the tab titled “VAT Return”.

This will most likely be a problem, as this will probably be the first version that you downloaded into that spreadsheet. This is because later versions downloaded would be titled VAT Return_2, VAT Return_3, etc and so would not be recognised by the App because they aren’t called just “VAT Return”.

So, if you’re not careful, you’re in danger of posting the same VAT Return more than once!

So, if you want to use just one spreadsheet for your accounts, then you will need to rename the tab of the VAT Return sheet after submission (eg add Q1, or Q2 at the end of the tab as relevant). Then that should differentiate them from the VAT Returns that you want to submit for the subsequent quarters in that year – which as you can now see must be titled “VAT Return” on the tab when that VAT Return is submitted to HMRC.

A different way to resolve this is issue is to use a different spreadsheet for each quarter and then copying them into a year end accounts spreadsheet for your year end accounts. This is the method we recommend, then this issue doesn’t arise.