Your VAT return is built from the books you already keep, so there is nothing to assemble at the end of a quarter. The work left is checking it.
Filed straight to HMRC
Once you have checked the nine boxes, submit the return to HMRC from the same screen. You connect your HMRC account once, and each submission is recorded against its period.
Two-factor sign-in comes first
The VAT and HMRC screens open only once you have two-factor sign-in turned on. Submitting a return asks for a fresh code from your authenticator app every time, even on a browser you have chosen to remember.
Before you open the return
Reconcile the period first. Anything still sitting unmatched is money the return does not know about, and it is much easier to sort now than to correct later.
Check the nine boxes
Every box is worked out from your transactions, and every one can be opened to see exactly which entries produced the figure.
VAT return · 1 Jun to 31 Aug 2026
Box 1 · VAT due on sales
£9,420.00
Box 2 · VAT due on acquisitions
£0.00
Box 3 · Total VAT due
Box 1 plus Box 2
£9,420.00
Box 4 · VAT reclaimed on purchases
£2,180.44
Box 5 · Net VAT to pay HMRC
Box 3 less Box 4
£7,239.56
Box 6 · Total sales excluding VAT
£47,100
Box 7 · Total purchases excluding VAT
£10,902
Box 8 · Goods supplied to EC countries excluding VAT
£0
Box 9 · Goods acquired from EC countries excluding VAT
£0
Boxes 3 and 5 are worked out from the others, so they are never something you type. If one of them looks wrong, the answer is in the boxes above it. Boxes 6 to 9 are in whole pounds, as HMRC asks.
If you are on a scheme
Flat rate
The boxes are calculated at your flat rate percentage, and the explanations change with it.
Cash accounting
VAT follows the date the money moves, so an unpaid invoice puts no VAT on this return.
Correcting a mistake
If you find an error in a return that has already gone, do not quietly edit the old period. Errors are corrected on your next return when they are small enough, and reported separately to HMRC on form VAT652 when they are not. Financial IQ keeps them as their own record either way, so the trail stays intact.
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