Accounting for small multiple transactions?

[megaphone]

I'm a service engineer, sole trader, just setting up new accounting and banking and VAT.

I need to account for vehicle parking, I can make maybe 30-40+ parking transactions a month via apps like Ringo, pay-by-phone etc. I get an email confirmation which I keep and I can download the receipts. Some of these have VAT, some are zero rated. What is the easiest way to account for these? I really don't want to have to go through each individual transaction/receipt etc. Can I just group them all together under one transaction? Say all the zero rated and all the vatable?

Also food whilst out working, again loads of small transactions, sometimes no receipt available, is a card statement sufficient, all grouped together? I work all over, travel a lot.

[Mr Pointy]

Are you on the Flat Rate scheme? If so, it would ease the issue of VAT & non-VAT supplies as you wouldn't need to tally those up.

What are you using for an accounting package? Xero seems to get a lot of positive comments & maybe there is an expense tracking addon for it.
https://www.xero.com/uk/features-and-tools/account...

I've no idea how good it is in practice though.

I got myself a separate credit card & used it only for business use so it made tracking expenses much easier.

[Eric Mc]

How are you paying for these small items -

bank account?
credit card?
cash?

Have you spoken to your accountant?

[megaphone]

Am on standard VAT. I pay on a credit card which is only used for business. I'm currently using Waveapps for my accounting (it's free and appears to do what I want) I don't have an accountant at the moment, may engage one if I feel I need one.

[Dg504]

All easily covered - an experienced book keeper even would crack this for you and get you setup with what’s important to note at the time of transaction.

I shouldn’t, but it’s wine Wednesday, so I’d wager 1 day a month of accountant/bookkeeper would cover it!

[Trailhead]

megaphone said:

I'm a service engineer, sole trader, just setting up new accounting and banking and VAT.

I need to account for vehicle parking, I can make maybe 30-40+ parking transactions a month via apps like Ringo, pay-by-phone etc. I get an email confirmation which I keep and I can download the receipts. Some of these have VAT, some are zero rated. What is the easiest way to account for these? I really don't want to have to go through each individual transaction/receipt etc. Can I just group them all together under one transaction? Say all the zero rated and all the vatable?

Also food whilst out working, again loads of small transactions, sometimes no receipt available, is a card statement sufficient, all grouped together? I work all over, travel a lot.

Yes you could post all the zero rated and the standard rated as two separate transactions. So long as you have evidence to back up the total amount you’ll be fine.

Happy to chat this over if you’d like any help. I’m a chartered accountant.

[Eric Mc]

megaphone said:

Am on standard VAT. I pay on a credit card which is only used for business. I'm currently using Waveapps for my accounting (it's free and appears to do what I want) I don't have an accountant at the moment, may engage one if I feel I need one.

The fact that you are asking basic questions indicates that an accountant or experienced book-keeper would be useful to have.

[megaphone]

Eric Mc said:

megaphone said:

Am on standard VAT. I pay on a credit card which is only used for business. I'm currently using Waveapps for my accounting (it's free and appears to do what I want) I don't have an accountant at the moment, may engage one if I feel I need one.

The fact that you are asking basic questions indicates that an accountant or experienced book-keeper would be useful to have.

Thanks, I like to do as much as I can myself, was hoping I'd get some constructive help on here.

[megaphone]

Trailhead said:

megaphone said:

I'm a service engineer, sole trader, just setting up new accounting and banking and VAT.

I need to account for vehicle parking, I can make maybe 30-40+ parking transactions a month via apps like Ringo, pay-by-phone etc. I get an email confirmation which I keep and I can download the receipts. Some of these have VAT, some are zero rated. What is the easiest way to account for these? I really don't want to have to go through each individual transaction/receipt etc. Can I just group them all together under one transaction? Say all the zero rated and all the vatable?

Also food whilst out working, again loads of small transactions, sometimes no receipt available, is a card statement sufficient, all grouped together? I work all over, travel a lot.

Yes you could post all the zero rated and the standard rated as two separate transactions. So long as you have evidence to back up the total amount you’ll be fine.

Happy to chat this over if you’d like any help. I’m a chartered accountant.

Thanks, that's confirms what I was thinking, I can download a monthly statement and receipts off the parking co's and sort it from there.

[Eric Mc]

megaphone said:

Thanks, I like to do as much as I can myself, was hoping I'd get some constructive help on here.

You would get very constructive help from a professional. I am all for people asking questions on PH. I ask them myself on certain topics and I have freely given accounting and tax advice here for almost two decades.

However, there comes a time when a person needs proper, formal, ongoing and professional advice and will need it on a regular basis. The notion that all of us can do everything is a falsehood.

I know from 44 years of working as an accountant that virtually 100% of people who try to do their own accounts and tax returns without access to professionals do not get it right most of the time.

[megaphone]

Eric Mc said:

megaphone said:

Thanks, I like to do as much as I can myself, was hoping I'd get some constructive help on here.

You would get very constructive help from a professional. I am all for people asking questions on PH. I ask them myself on certain topics and I have freely given accounting and tax advice here for almost two decades.

However, there comes a time when a person needs proper, formal, ongoing and professional advice and will need it on a regular basis. The notion that all of us can do everything is a falsehood.

I know from 44 years of working as an accountant that virtually 100% of people who try to do their own accounts and tax returns without access to professionals do not get it right most of the time.

Thanks, really appreciate the helpful advice.

[psi310398]

Eric Mc said:

You would get very constructive help from a professional. I am all for people asking questions on PH. I ask them myself on certain topics and I have freely given accounting and tax advice here for almost two decades.

However, there comes a time when a person needs proper, formal, ongoing and professional advice and will need it on a regular basis. The notion that all of us can do everything is a falsehood.

I know from 44 years of working as an accountant that virtually 100% of people who try to do their own accounts and tax returns without access to professionals do not get it right most of the time.

^This. In spades.

I can't even do the basic book keeping entirely correctly. And my accounts are pretty basic, although much, but not all, of what I do is zero rated for VAT.

[Penrhyn]

Your annual sales are over £85,000 to need to charge VAT aren’t they?

[megaphone]

Penrhyn said:

Your annual sales are over £85,000 to need to charge VAT aren’t they?

No under, but I expect to go over in a year or two. I need to be VAT registered as I buy and sell kit, also my customers expect a VAT invoice.

[Penrhyn]

megaphone said:

Penrhyn said:

Your annual sales are over £85,000 to need to charge VAT aren’t they?

No under, but I expect to go over in a year or two. I need to be VAT registered as I buy and sell kit, also my customers expect a VAT invoice.

You are a service engineer.

Do you do work for households. I for one would not care about vat so long as l had an invoice, but your charges include 20% for HMRC.

Fully get the recovery of Vat on purchasing, but does that outway the pain of the Vat returns (time spent) and the visits you are bound to get from them. Wow was that fun, NOT.

Instead suggest you can increase your basic charge 10% , whilst getting rid of the Vat, still raising Invoices of course.

Obviously if you are 100% sure your business will expand then you really need to at least consider a decent book keeping system.

Ideally setup by a book keeper so that at the touch of button you know how much you spent on fuel, in the last quarter , or year or years.

You do l trust have liability insurance

[megaphone]

Penrhyn said:

megaphone said:

Penrhyn said:

Your annual sales are over £85,000 to need to charge VAT aren’t they?

No under, but I expect to go over in a year or two. I need to be VAT registered as I buy and sell kit, also my customers expect a VAT invoice.

You are a service engineer.

Do you do work for households. I for one would not care about vat so long as l had an invoice, but your charges include 20% for HMRC.

Fully get the recovery of Vat on purchasing, but does that outway the pain of the Vat returns (time spent) and the visits you are bound to get from them. Wow was that fun, NOT.

Instead suggest you can increase your basic charge 10% , whilst getting rid of the Vat, still raising Invoices of course.

Obviously if you are 100% sure your business will expand then you really need to at least consider a decent book keeping system.

Ideally setup by a book keeper so that at the touch of button you know how much you spent on fuel, in the last quarter , or year or years.

You do l trust have liability insurance

Thanks. The majority of my customers are commercial, they expect a VAT invoice. I buy and sell kit and make a reasonable margin on it, so need to be VAT registered. A quarterly VAT return is no real issue, I can do it within an hour. I'm using an accounting package which, so far, has been working well.

Yes I'm fully insured and have been for 3 decades.

[Mr Pointy]

Penrhyn said:

You are a service engineer.

Do you do work for households. I for one would not care about vat so long as l had an invoice, but your charges include 20% for HMRC.

Fully get the recovery of Vat on purchasing, but does that outway the pain of the Vat returns (time spent) and the visits you are bound to get from them. Wow was that fun, NOT.

Instead suggest you can increase your basic charge 10% , whilst getting rid of the Vat, still raising Invoices of course.

Obviously if you are 100% sure your business will expand then you really need to at least consider a decent book keeping system.

Ideally setup by a book keeper so that at the touch of button you know how much you spent on fuel, in the last quarter , or year or years.

You do l trust have liability insurance

If you're organised VAT is not difficult & being registered means the OP can reclaim input VAT on a wide variety of expenses - fuel for one. I've never seen a VAT officier in 25 years of trading.

OP: have a look at the Flate Rate scheme - depending on how much you spend on buying in parts & materials it may be beneficial. You might qualify for one of the 10% classifications & operating Flat Rate VAT is pretty easy.

[Eric Mc]

For most businesses, Flat Rate is a waste of time now. If you have any costs at all on which you want to recover VAT, normal VAT works out more effective than Flat Rate.