Comments on: Sage VAT Codes – Trouble with a capital T?

By: Emily Coltman

Emily Coltman — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 16:11:57 +0000

I have to say that whatever software you use, whatever their system is for dealing with the change in VAT rate, the change itself is nothing but a pain in the backside.

As Duane points out in his last paragraph, a drop of 2.5% will do nothing to boost consumer spending. It’s too small a figure to have a serious effect. And when the figure starts getting big enough to be significant – well if you can afford £1,150 for something then you can afford £1,175.

The change was big enough to be annoying but too small to have any other effect.

When will these politicians wake up to the real world that the rest of us have to live in?

By: Patrick Johnson

Patrick Johnson — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 12:08:05 +0000

@Matt – Great, you won’t regret it and you will save a multitude of time.

By: Matt Chatterley

Matt Chatterley — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 11:04:38 +0000

@Ray Thanks – I’ll have a look. 🙂 Though to be honest we’ve got S15 (heh see my logic there? Spot the developer) – and it’s fine for now.

@Patrick I suspect you’re absoultely right – it’s just worry about the temporary hiccoughs while sorting out invoice generation, estimate printing, etc. Have got it pencilled in for May, though, as our next release will be signed, sealed (and hopefully delivered) then!

By: Patrick Johnson

Patrick Johnson — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 10:57:12 +0000

@Matt – I’ve used KashFlow before and will be going back to it now im self employed again. After using Quickbooks i can honestly say the sooner you move over to KashFlow the sooner you will start SAVING time.

I don’t know if you’ve used it before but give it a go, there is a 60 day trial which will give you pleanty of time to get going and you certainly will not look back.

By: Ray Stewart

Ray Stewart — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 10:51:55 +0000

Matt

Did you try clicking on edit, preferences, VAT, Company Preferences – then click on the down arrow at the side of the default VAT code? I have just done this on two seperate client’s QB files and found it simple.

Let us know how you go on!

Ray

By: Matt Chatterley

Matt Chatterley — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 07:37:44 +0000

I had a bit of a wrestle with QuickBooks (yes, yes, I know – we should look at moving to KF – which we will, as soon as I have time to dedicate to it!) – and ended up creating code S15 to stand for ‘standard 15’, because I couldn’t find an easy way to edit the ‘S’ (standard) code moving forwards.

As ever, slightly unsure if this is my fault or QuickBooks – and the help was great too – “We can see you are trying to change the VAT Rate.. would you like some totally irrelevant information, or perhaps a random crash?” 😉

By: Duane Jackson

Duane Jackson — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 00:58:38 +0000

Hi Ian,

Sorry, I must have not explained myself very well.

I’m not saying anything is Sages responsibility or trying to apportion blame. I’m agreeing with the guidance Sage gave.

This isn’t about data being “KashFlow compatible”. Again, I must have not explained myself very well as there are no issues with data being compatible with KashFlow.

If anything, the issues come when exporting from Sage into accounts productions packages like those from Digita and Iris. Nothing to do with KashFlow.

I’m just flagging something that I suspect will become an issue for other people too.

But thanks for taking the time to comment. It’s appreciated.

By: Ian

Ian — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 23:03:21 +0000

Er, it’s not Sage’s responsibility, or that of their users, to ensure all Sage data is kept in a format that makes it KashFlow-compatible. If some Sage users preferred to set up a new code for the 15% rate, to keep all the transactions at the two different rates separate and make sure the cut-off worked, that’s fine and it has nothing to do with you! Somehow I’m sure users of accounting systems other than KashFlow will muddle through, amazing as that may seem.