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VAT Summary report

The VAT Summary report works out your VAT position for a period: the VAT you charged customers on your sales (output VAT), less the VAT suppliers charged you on your purchases…

VAT Summary report

The VAT Summary report works out your VAT position for a period: the VAT you charged customers on your sales (output VAT), less the VAT suppliers charged you on your purchases (input VAT), leaving the net VAT you owe — or can reclaim.

It is also the check on your VAT return. The return is prepared from your ledger under Banking → VAT Returns (see VAT returns); this report sets your documents' figures beside your ledger's, box by box, and lists the journal lines that account for the difference.

Note: This report helps you see your VAT position. It is not tax advice, and it is not a substitute for your VAT return. Follow your tax authority's rules before filing.

Before you begin

  • Sign in and select your organisation. The report is available on every plan.
  • Figures are shown in your functional currency (foreign-currency documents are converted using the rate locked on each one).
  • The report is on an accrual basis, built from your issued documents by document date. Drafts and voided documents are excluded.

Open the report

  1. Go to Reports and, under Financial, open VAT Summary.
  2. Choose a period with the Reporting Period selector (a preset such as This quarter, or a custom From/To range).

[Screenshot required: VAT Summary report showing the Output VAT, Input VAT and Net VAT cards]

How to read it

Three summary cards give you the headline position:

  • Output VAT (on sales) — VAT on your issued sales invoices, less VAT on your issued sales credit notes.
  • Input VAT (on purchases) — VAT on your issued purchase invoices, less VAT on your issued purchase credit notes.
  • Net VAT due — output VAT less input VAT, payable to the tax authority. If input VAT is larger, this instead reads Net VAT reclaimable, recoverable from the tax authority.

Below the cards, the VAT return boxes panel presents the figures the way HMRC's return does — boxes 1 to 9. Box 1 is the VAT due on your outputs, box 4 the VAT you reclaim, box 5 the net to pay or reclaim, and boxes 6 and 7 the ex-VAT value of your outputs and inputs. Boxes 2, 8 and 9 apply only to Northern Ireland protocol goods movements, which are not yet modelled, so they show zero.

Each box has three columns:

  • Your documents — the box worked out from your issued documents, as the cards above are.
  • Journals — what manual journal lines given their VAT add to it: bad-debt relief, a partial-exemption adjustment, a correction. These have no document behind them.
  • Your ledger — the box as your ledger has it. This is what your VAT return is prepared from.

When your documents and journals add up to your ledger in every box, the panel says so. When they don't, the ledger figure is marked and the panel states, box by box, how much of your ledger no document or journal explains. The difference is shown rather than hidden or netted away; look into it before you finalise the return, because the return follows the ledger.

Journal lines on the return

Under the boxes, every journal line dated in the period that carries VAT is listed: its date, its journal (select the number to open it), the account, the description, what the line is on the return, and what it adds to boxes 1, 4, 6 and 7. A negative figure takes the box down. Voiding a journal lists its reversal too, marked Void, on the same date as the journal.

Two breakdowns follow:

  • Breakdown by Document Type — each document type (sales invoices, sales credit notes, purchase invoices, purchase credit notes), whether it is Output or Input VAT, the number of documents, the net amount and the VAT. Purchases you recorded with a reverse-charge rate are shown separately as Reverse charge purchases, with their self-accounted VAT on its own Reverse charge output VAT and Reverse charge input VAT rows.
  • Breakdown by Tax Rate — for each tax rate (for example "Standard (20%)"), the sales net and output VAT, and the purchases net and input VAT. Each line is counted as it was charged: an invoice's discount and any tax override are shared across its lines, so the table adds up to the documents above it. Box 6 leaves out supplies outside the scope of VAT; this table lists them under their own rate.

Reverse-charge purchases

Bills recorded with a reverse-charge rate (services bought from overseas suppliers) carry no payable VAT, but you self-account the notional VAT — so the report shows it on both sides: in box 1 (and output VAT) as VAT you charged yourself, and in box 4 (and input VAT) as VAT reclaimed, with the net value in both box 6 and box 7, per HMRC's rules for services from abroad. See Reverse charge VAT on purchases from abroad.

An important point about written-off invoices

An invoice you have written off as bad debt still counts in Output VAT. Writing off a debt records that you do not expect to be paid — but it does not cancel the VAT you originally charged, so that VAT remains part of your output figure.

Warning: This is deliberate, and it means the VAT Summary treats write-offs differently from the Revenue by Customer report, which excludes written-off invoices from revenue. If you qualify for bad-debt relief under your tax authority's rules, claim it with a manual journal whose line carries its VAT — see Journals and your VAT return. It then appears here among the journal lines, and your return picks it up from the ledger. The documents' figures do not change.

What counts here

  • Included: issued sales invoices and sales credit notes (output side); issued purchase invoices and purchase credit notes (input side); by document date within the period.
  • Excluded: drafts and voided documents. Quotes, estimates and proforma invoices carry no VAT and never appear.
  • Journals: listed separately, as above, and counted only in the Journals column and in your ledger's.

Periods before your records here

If your books moved here from another system, the report only covers dates from the day your records here begin:

  • A period wholly before that day shows a notice and no figures. A return of zeros would be a claim about a period these records do not cover.
  • A period that spans that day is refused, with the same reason your VAT return gives. The months before it are in your previous records, so the figures would be short. See VAT returns.

Export

Select Export CSV to download the summary, the boxes with their three columns and what is not explained, the journal lines, and the breakdowns. A header block records the report, organisation, accrual basis, period and currency.

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