How to include VAT in a journal entry

Question asked by sophia chab 7 years ago

I am entering expenses using the journal entry posting directly to bank and the GL as i dont have these set up as suppliers. How do i post a transaction that is vatable using the journal entry as these will need to be included in the vat return. example £100 was spent at a petrol station, i would expect the journal to be

£100 Bank £80 Fuel £20 VAT

3 Replies

Hi Sophia - It is normal and, for HMRC purposes, sensible, to record customers and suppliers in the bookkeeping however, if you don't want to you can just use a generic "Customer" or "Supplier" entity for all sales and purchases. Many businesses us this with say petrol receipts where, rather than generate suppliers for BP, Shell etc just use "Petrol stations".

If you still want to use journals, and have lots of them, you can import them on a CSV (in the tools > import menu). Unfortunately you can't specify VAT entries on the import but the import will set up the journals and you can then edit each to tick the relevant VAT boxes.

Hi when you enter the journal there are sales & purchases check boxes on the right hand side so with the above you'd tick the purchase check boxes next to the £80 and £20.

Entering bank entries by this method is very time consuming, you can do it quicker and deal with the VAT normally via the bank screen, either individually by using money in or out, or by re-creating a bank statement with as many lines as you want. But the quickest way is to import bank statements, either manually or as a feed via Yodlee.

Hi,

I have tried using the bank feed and the bank screen however it says an entity is mandatory, i dont want tonpost to a customer or a supplier just a direct posting bank to GL, can this be done using the bank feed?

Hi Sophia - It is normal and, for HMRC purposes, sensible, to record customers and suppliers in the bookkeeping however, if you don't want to you can just use a generic "Customer" or "Supplier" entity for all sales and purchases. Many businesses us this with say petrol receipts where, rather than generate suppliers for BP, Shell etc just use "Petrol stations".

If you still want to use journals, and have lots of them, you can import them on a CSV (in the tools > import menu). Unfortunately you can't specify VAT entries on the import but the import will set up the journals and you can then edit each to tick the relevant VAT boxes.

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