Oh dear, it turns out we don't get VAT back...

[Derek Atkins]

"Keith A. Milner" <maillist at superlative.org> writes:

> On Thursday 16 Jun 2011 15:00:23 edpsystems wrote:
>> I love the way IANAA can become internet slang and understood in 2 days!
>> Brilliant!
>> 
>> I'm not an accountant either, my aim when I implemented GnuCash was to move
>> away from monthly spreadsheets and be able to monitor our overheads vs
>> income in-house. As you rightly point out we're a dental clinic, so we have
>> to look at our cost of services, maintenance and materials, but it's not
>> proving beneficial because although I can see we spent x on electricity, it
>> actually cost x+VAT, and the reports don't take the VAT into account.
>> 
>> If GnuCash doesn't cater for VAT-exempt businesses then I can't say I
>> didn't try.
>
> It can, but if you're reporting requirements dictate that you want to see 
> things in a certain way then you need to adapt your usage.
>
> Basically, you can't use the in-built tax calcs, but if you don't need to 
> account for VAT separately (for reclaim) then I don't see any benefit in using 
> these anyway.

your other option is to split it out as a subaccount.  E.g., put the
electricity into Expenses:Utilities:Electricity and then the VAT into
Ex:U:E:VAT.  This way reports will show you the total electricity, but
you'll also see how much you spent on electricity
vs. VAT-for-electricity.  The downside is that this makes it harder to
see how much you spent on VAT across the board, but if you don't have to
claim it then that doesn't matter.

> Cheers,

-derek

-- 
       Derek Atkins, SB '93 MIT EE, SM '95 MIT Media Laboratory
       Member, MIT Student Information Processing Board  (SIPB)
       URL: http://web.mit.edu/warlord/    PP-ASEL-IA     N1NWH
       warlord at MIT.EDU                        PGP key available