Sales

The sales section allows you to create invoices and receive payments from your customers. The VAT charged here will be used to calculate the Output VAT.

Create invoice

This opens an invoice form - choose the customer at the top left and fill in the details:

You should note:

The customer addresses shown here will only be available if you have ticked the "Invoices can be sent here" box when adding a customer address.

Similarly your own payment addresses will only be available if you have ticked the "Payments can be sent here" box when adding your company addresses under the Company tab.

Two dates are required - "Supply of goods" and "Issue of Invoice" - both dates are required to obtain the 'Tax Point', which is the date at which VAT is applied, and is the earliest of the two when using the Standard Method.

The 'customer order number' and 'payment instructions' are text fields which will be shown on the invoice, you can leave them blank if you do not use them.

The contact name is a drop down list of names which can be set under the Company tab. The name chosen will be shown as an 'in case of enquiry' name on the invoice. If not wanted it can be left blank.

When adding items which you are selling, you can type the description in the description field, or you can choose a description from a drop down list, which will show the items you have added using the "Add item to sell" button. This is convenient as it then adds the cost and VAT fields automatically. If you set your own description, you will have to choose one of the drop down VAT options - these are all set under the VAT tab - "Set VAT rates".

The "Create pdf" button will create a pdf file of the invoice - but be warned, it does not save the invoice on the database. You should choose the "Apply" button to submit and save the invoice, which will then create a transaction recording the amount to be invoiced.

Once saved, you can always create another pdf file of the invoice via the "View invoices" button, where previously submitted invoices can be viewed.

Payment Received

Having sent an invoice, at some point hopefully the customer will send you payment. Pick payment received to record the payment - this will show a list of customers, double click on the customer from whom you have received the payment.

As a received payment could be for multiple invoices, the next screen shows the open invoices sent to this customer, highlight those applicable and input the payment details.

View invoices

Shows previously created invoices, double click on any invoice to see its details. These include the option to create a pdf document of the invoice.

If no payments have yet been received for the invoice, under the view there is a button giving you the option to 'Cancel Invoice', this automatically creates a credit note for the full invoice amount, which cancels the sale.

Create Credit Note

If you need to send a credit note to a customer, choose this button. Two types of credit note can be created:

- One associated with a previous invoice, informing the customer they can reduce their payment on the invoice.

- Or a credit note to be sent to the customer with a payment.

It is necessary to record invoices and credit notes as they are included in the VAT calculations.

View Credit Notes

This enables you to view credit notes previously created. It includes the option to create a pdf document of a previous credit note.

Add item to sell

As a convenience you can add items you frequently sell here with their cost and VAT - so they will be available as a drop-down item when you are creating an invoice.

Add a new customer

Add the customer name and address

"The customer is within the EC" - should be ticked for all EC and UK customers

"The customer is VAT registered" - tick for VAT (or national equivalent) registered customers

Set the VAT country code to GB if this is a British customer, or to the appropriate country code if the customer is within another EC member state. Note - if the customer is within the EC but outside GB then sales to this customer will be used to fill in Box 8 of your VAT return.

If the customer is within GB, their VAT registration number can be left blank if you do not know it, or if the customer is not VAT registered - as it is not used on invoices.

However if the customer is from outside GB and within the EC this must be filled in if the customer is registered, as it is necessary to record this to produce invoices without VAT. The actual number will be the customers 'VAT' equivalent registration number - which may be called something else in their country, i.e. MwSt in Germany. This information is needed to complete an EC Sales List.

If the customer is outside the EC, then untick the 'customer is within the EC' checkbox, and the VAT country code and registration number do not apply.

Edit

Choose a customer in the drop down list, and then choose "Edit" to change customer details. This also allows you to add further addresses if the customer has multiple offices, such as different invoice and delivery addresses.

Contacts

For your convenience you can store customer contact names, emails and phone numbers here, these can be searched via the "Search" button under the Reports tab.

Bank

The customers bank details can be stored here.

The Transactions

This section describes how VATStuff moves money during a sale.

When an invoice is created; the customers account is debited by the total amount (net cost plus the VAT) showing how much he owes you, and the 'Sales' account - which is an account in the system folder, is credited with the net cost; and the VAT Balance account - another account in the system folder, is credited with the VAT.

If you are not VAT registered, your invoice has not charged any VAT, and so the VAT Balance is not credited.

So at this stage:

When the customer subsequently pays you; the full amount (net cost plus VAT) is transferred from the customers account to the cash or bank account of your choice.

Therefore the customers account is credited back down to zero - indicating they no longer owe you anything, and your cash has gone up. However you still owe HMRC as shown by the credit amount in the VAT Balance account.

So after a customer payment:

When it comes to submitting your VAT return the VAT owed is moved from your cash/bank account to the VAT Balance account.

The Sales account records the net amount of your sales and is continually credited as you make sales. It will be debited if you have to give a refund by creating a credit note. Typically, if you wish to record finer detail, you may create other accounts, recording the specific goods or services you provide, and manually transfer amounts from these to the Sales account (using the facilities under the Move Money tab) - so each of these individual accounts maintains a record of the sales of your different services.

Alternatively - if you wish to keep a record of the sales in any time period, such as annually, you could create an account to record this, and each year credit the annual account, and debit the Sales account to zero.

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