VAT IN LEGALSUITE

Accessing the VAT Summary:

· Click on the business ledger icon  the following screen will appear (Fig 1):

Fig 1: Business Ledger Screen

How to calculate VAT for specific periods:

· Click on the SARS icon  the following screen will appear (Fig 2):

Fig 2: VAT Summary Screen

As At (Recommend):

There are two methods in which LegalSuite calculates VAT. LegalSuite recommends the ‘as at’ option as this option brings in to account all transactions from inception which includes all payments to the Receiver, refunds from the Receiver as well as all transactions that have been posted to a previous period. This option will total the VAT up to the period specified and then subtract all VAT payments that have been made.

Range:

This option will only display the VAT due for the period specified. Transactions posted out of period will not be taken into account.

· Click on the display button  and all transactions will be displayed for the selected period.

· Click on the transactions icon  and the transactions will be displayed for the highlighted total.

· To print the VAT 201 return, click on the button that looks like paper with a printer . Please note that this return must not be sent to the receiver. This VAT return on LegalSuite is only a guideline.

· If you wish to see all payments and refunds captured on the system, click on the green money bag icon

We recommend that you use the  Payment/Receipt option instead of creating a new transaction because specific VAT details are required when posting to the VAT Control account and this information is already completed in the VAT Analysis Payment/Receipt Transaction.

Analysing the VAT:

Due to disbursements including both output and input VAT, your total income on the trial balance cannot be agreed to the consideration amount in the VAT 201 form.

There are reports that you can run to

1. get a summary of what VAT your income account attracted.

2. get a summary of which ledger accounts incurred output vat.

If you wish to examine specific transactions for a ledger account or VAT type there are also detailed reports that can be run.

VAT Reports:

The VAT return must always agree to the Ledger Acc vs VAT Type Report. To select this report click on the printer button .

Click on VAT on the left and select the report “Ledger Acc vs VAT Type”. As shown below (Fig 3):

FIG 3: Reports Screen

Click on the print button . The following screen will appear (Fig 4):

Fig 4: Filter Screen

Business must be ‘All’ as we wish to see every ledger account containing VAT.

Select the period you are calculating your VAT for.

Click OK.

The following report will appear (Fig 5):

Fig 5: Ledger Acc vs VAT Type Report

The Input Capital, Input Other and Output Other columns must agree to the VAT 201 return

(Fig 6):

   Fig 6: VAT 201 Return