Overwhelmed by your VAT returns

Question: Does this topic get you in a cold sweat?

It used to for me, anyway.

The notion of doing a bi-monthly VAT return was very off-putting. Even just finding the time to go through my pile of (admittedly scattered and sometimes misplaced) Sales and Purchase Invoices. On top of that I probably spent longer worrying about it than actually doing it. Trying to work out my input and output VAT with no bookkeeping background sucked. And, even when I got to the end of all that, I wasn’t even sure if I was reclaiming as much VAT as I could or should be. Does this sound familiar?

I can’t be alone. I imagine this has affected countless small business owners in Ireland. It can seriously affect your happiness and mental health levels. It’s the feeling of not being in control, the threat of audits or fines, confusion, time pressure. The fact that you are in the midst of trying to run a business and all the energy that takes, doesn’t leave a huge amount in the tank for bookkeeping.

This is what I had not got my head around:

Bookkeeping isn’t exciting. It never will be. But is it necessary to get on top of it immediately? Of course. How can you grow your business without knowing where you are and are not spending wisely? Without knowing who owes you what, and from when? Where you actually stand at that moment? What you owe or are owed from Revenue?

So what do you do?

Well, if you can afford to hire a bookkeeper, that’s one solution. I couldn’t justify that expense at the stage I was at in my business.

The other solution is to knuckle down and get it done in the most time-effective way possible.  The skills you learn stay with you forever. There is help. You can simply get an App that makes life easier. You still need to input that data. There’s no magical solution that reads your mind (yet) but using Mind My Business to create and record your sales invoices and enter your purchase invoices for a few vital minutes regularly is all it takes.  The pay-off starts immediately when you go to copy Invoices and our app is already one step ahead, and becomes hugely tangible later when you go to do that dreaded VAT and all those figures are ready with a few clicks.

You’ll also be ready for your Return of Trader Details (RTD) at the end of the Year.

Here’s the How To Guide to completing your VAT Return in under a minute using our cloud bookkeeping app.

And we still offer a free online training session included in our small business accounts package for all sign-ups, giving our customers the opportunity to explore alone or be guided. Drop us an email to arrange a demo.