VAT Review, now open for early access

Every quarter, someone reviewing a client's VAT return makes the same trade-off. Scroll every transaction line by hand, or sample the highest-value ones and accept the risk on everything else.

Most firms choose the second. Not because the rest doesn't matter, but because there isn't time to check all of it by hand. Mimo Associate changes that.

VAT Review is now open for early access, and it's ready for you to try on as many clients as you like, free until the end of August. Sign up today to get going.

Every line, not a sample

VAT Review reads every transaction in the period you're checking, not a selection of the largest ones. Each line is checked against three things at once: the invoice itself, how the supplier's been coded historically, and current HMRC rules.

What agrees with all three stays out of your way. What doesn't gets flagged, with the reasoning and the source document attached, so you're checking the agent's logic, not taking its word for it.

Specifically, VAT Review checks each line for:

• VAT coding accuracy - compares each line's VAT code against learned supplier patterns from transaction history, flagging lines that deviate from established coding for a supplier and account pair

• Invoice VAT totals - checks that the VAT total on each invoice header matches the sum of VAT coded across its line items

• Inactive tax codes - flags lines using tax codes that have been retired or deleted, or VAT charged with no tax code assigned

• Reverse charge - identifies services purchased from non-UK VAT-registered suppliers where standard VAT has been applied instead of the reverse charge mechanism

• Exempt categories - flags VAT claimed on inherently exempt items such as bank fees, insurance premiums, dividends, and stamp duty

• Client entertainment - catches input VAT claimed on client entertainment expenses, non-recoverable under HMRC rules

• Car lease VAT blocking - identifies car lease lines where full VAT has been claimed when only 50% of input VAT is recoverable

• Foreign currency VAT - flags non-GBP purchases from suppliers without a UK VAT number where input VAT has been claimed

• Missing supporting documents - flags purchase lines claiming over £100 in VAT with no invoice or receipt attached, excluding suppliers where attachments are rarely provided

• Direct VAT control postings - flags manual journals posted directly to the VAT control account, bypassing automatic VAT handling

One place for VAT review, reconciliation and miscoding checks

Run a full VAT review each quarter, reconcile against the VAT control account, and check for miscodings as often as you like in between, particularly useful for clients who close their own books, where drift between quarters is easiest to miss.

What this changes for your team

• No more choosing between a full manual scroll and a risk-accepting sample

• No more re-exporting to a spreadsheet every time a correction changes the picture

• No more waiting until the quarter's due to catch a coding pattern that's drifted

• No more starting from zero each period, the reasoning behind every flag is right there with it

Your team stops deciding what to skip and starts from a list of what actually needs a decision. VAT review becomes faster, more complete, and easier to run every quarter.

VAT Review is in early access, sign up today to try it on your clients for free until end of August.