Making Tax Digital

I am looking at bridging software and am trialling Taxoptimiser.

https://www.taxoptimiser.co.uk/Features/MTDVAT

The video at 1:19 says that "this example spreadsheet is available to download within the software", but I can't find it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTI9kmwt2iI

Any ideas?

Thanks for this - looks simpler. I did speak to someone at Quickbooks on Friday actually. They were very helpful.

The MTD is just starting with the VAT, but will eventually spread to every part of the accounts as far as I understand IE self assessment etc. So the bridging is only a temporary fix I think.

Much as I think its a rubbish idea, I'm going to try and get to grips with it now. The program does cover payroll too, so I may be able to combine my payroll program into this and save some money on relicensing the payroll in the future.

I am still using Quicken 2000 UK and Excel 2000 on a Windows 10 desktop PC. I needed a solution to bridge to Making Tax Digital - VAT. Tax Optimiser appears to be that solution. The cost is zero/free. Tax Optimiser is listed in HMRC "VAT compatible software – available now" table at

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/software-for-sending-income-tax-updates#VAT

1. Open a free account at Tax Optimiser https://www.taxoptimiser.co.uk
2. Enter your business details into that account
3. HMRC > VAT Settings
4. Select Tax Optimiser as the Software Template, and note the cell references that will be used
5. HMRC > VAT Returns in Tax Optimiser
6. Click the second link in the Period column
7. Download the example spreadsheet offered in the right hand pane
8. In Quicken, create a VAT Summary Report
9. 'Print' that report to a "Tab-delimited Disk File", which will have the file extension .txt
10. Open that .txt file in Notepad
11. Copy and paste the contents into the second tab of the Excel spreadsheet mentioned above
12. Link the nine cells required by normal VAT Returns to the correct nine cells in the VAT tab
13. Follow your nose to 'submit' a trial submission - that does not actually get sent to HMRC

That all worked for me. Having done it once I can't backtrack and do steps 7 and 11 onwards again without creating another Tax Optimiser account, so some of those steps may not be absolutely accurate. But you should get the drift.

Ozzuk wrote: »

Incidently, I've heard rumours HMRC will insist on it being done from within your ERP as the next stage, perhaps as soon as 2020. Trying to get confirmation on this, we use SAP and its a global system so not easy to change.

You won't get any confirmation until HMRC decide what they're doing. There are no fixed plans to even do that yet, let alone imposing a date from which it would apply. Just lots of hot air from HMRC about what they'd like to do in the future and some very flimsy plans. A lot will depend on how much of a car crash the MTD introduction is in April this year, if it even happens in April.