[GNC-dev] [GNC] UK VAT and "Making Tax Digital"

[Maf. King]

On Sunday, 12 May 2019 01:54:16 BST you wrote:
> Good luck creating a build. Branch at
> https://github.com/Gnucash/gnucash/pull/500 or
> https://github.com/christopherlam/gnucash/tree/maint-csv-export

Morning,

I pulled your maint-csv-export branch the other day, but haven't got round to 
doing anything with it.  Will update before I do.

> 
> I've amended the report options to be simpler; only 3 accounts selections
> are needed:
> - sales accts - default to income and A/Receivable, can also select any
> other acct type (eg liability/loans???)

the flexibility is good, but why A/R by default?  the other side to those txns 
would generally be an income a/c & VAT collected split?
I don't think loans into the business would have a VAT component.  But who 
knows what the gubberment might change in the future.


> - purch accts - default to expense and A/Payable, can also select any other
> acct type (eg capital asset)

See above ref A/P selected by default.

> - tax accts - default to nil, select VAT (EC&non-EC) asset/liability accts.
> 
> In addition, sales&purch accts whose description contain *ECGOODS* are
> counted separately for boxes 8 and 9
> And tax accts are also handled differently depending whether *ECVAT* exists
> in description.
> 
> There may be a more elegant way to select them. The CSV output is sound
> though.
> 
> Should the sales&purch accts be limited? eg sales can be
> INCOME/AR/LIABILITY only? ditto purch = EXP/AP/ASSET only?

Limiting selection types might be reasonable, but I see no real necessity  to 
limit.  If you're setting up for VAT then you should have a clue about the 
different types of accounts and where the relevant txns are in your tree.  
this isn't mom&pop we need to cater for here, but small businesses with a 
turnover of 85k+.  A bit of accounting knowledge, and some good docs (OK, I 
hear you - "contributions welcome from the user base".  ;-0 )  should be 
enough?

thanks again for your time & efforts.

M.


> 
> C
> 
> On Fri, 10 May 2019 at 11:42, Maf. King <maf at chilwell.net> wrote:
> > Hi Christopher,
> > 
> > Thanks.  The sample report output looks good.
> > 
> > Haven't tried to build GC since 1.6 ish days ( a long time ago) so I'm not
> > sure how that will go.  From the list, it seems a lot more simple than it
> > used
> > to be.
> > 
> > Will have a go and see what happens.
> > 
> > thanks,
> > Maf.
> > 
> > On Thursday, 9 May 2019 12:01:35 BST you wrote:
> > > See sample report output.
> > > Branch as of
> > 
> > https://github.com/christopherlam/gnucash/tree/maint-export-csv
> > 
> > > -- note there are infrastructure changes which will require build rather
> > > than copy-into-3.5
> > > It will require careful selection of accounts.
> > > Not sure if it is applicable to countries other than UK.
> > > 
> > > On Wed, 8 May 2019 at 13:52, Maf. King <maf at chilwell.net> wrote:
> > > > On Wednesday, 8 May 2019 14:27:03 BST you wrote:
> > > > > It would seem the way forward would be a tailored report, requesting
> > 
> > the
> > 
> > > > 7
> > > > 
> > > > > source accounts as above, and they will by default select accounts
> > > > > according to the UK VAT template accounts. e.g. (1) preselected to
> > > > 
> > > > accounts
> > > > 
> > > > > with substrings "VAT" "Output" and "Sales", (2) to accounts with
> > > > 
> > > > substrings
> > > > 
> > > > > "VAT" "Output" "EC", etc.
> > > > > 
> > > > > Unfortunately the above strategy will not be easily generalisable to
> > > > 
> > > > other
> > > > 
> > > > > countries, let alone other EC VAT reports.
> > > > > 
> > > > > C
> > > > 
> > > > A thought - there's no reason to hard code the default accounts, if it
> > > > makes
> > > > the report more useful to others.
> > > > 
> > > > It isn't hard (from a user perspective) to do a 1-time set up of
> > 
> > accounts,
> > 
> > > > then save as a customised set of options for next time around.
> > > > 
> > > > Of course, I don't know if that makes it harder for you as author -
> > 
> > more
> > 
> > > > dialogs & options, I suppose?
> > > > 
> > > > Maf.
> > 
> > --
> > Maf. King
> > PGP Key fingerprint = 8D68 A91F 733B 2C1F 43B7  2B7C E591 E8E1 0DE7 C542


-- 
Maf. King
PGP Key fingerprint = 8D68 A91F 733B 2C1F 43B7  2B7C E591 E8E1 0DE7 C542