Reading a VAT return before you submit
A practical walkthrough of the boxes that most often hide coding drift — and what to check against invoices first.
Submitting a VAT return on time is not the same as submitting one you can defend. Before you lock figures, spend a short session matching the largest box movements to the invoices and journals behind them.
Start with output tax. Pull a list of sales invoices for the period and scan for codes that do not match the supply — standard-rated work billed as zero-rated, or reverse-charge lines that never reached the return. Then look at credit notes: they should reduce the same boxes they inflated when the original invoice was booked.
On input tax, sort purchases by value and by supplier. Incomplete VAT numbers, missing narrative, and entertainment claims are the usual weak points. If you use partial exemption, confirm the residual pool matches the expenditure you intended to include — not every cost sitting in a shared ledger code.
Finally, compare the return to the VAT control account. Unexplained differences often mean journals were posted after the draft return was prepared. Fix those before submission, and keep a short note of what changed. That note becomes the first page of any evidence pack you may need later.