Phase 1 of the soft landing period for Making Tax Digital comes to an end on 1st of April 2021, having been deferred for a year. From 1st April 2021, this brings in changes which will require for a direct and auditable digital link from the VAT return back to the source financial system and eliminating all manual intervention and rekeying of data into spreadsheets.  There will be some exceptions to this for various calculations. 

Be prepared with PAMTD from Professional Advantage

With Professional Advantage's PAMTD solution, you have all requirements covered for now and for the future for if and when HMRC stop the use of spreadsheets. Our solution can not only take a spreadsheet of data, digitally import and add it to the VAT return but can also take VAT data directly from Infor SunSystems (the record of note) bypassing any manipulation of data depending on which route you wish to take. Our MTD solution is the only making tax digital solution that sits within the Infor SunSystems database, creating a deep, seamless link.

Learn more about PAMTD - Making Tax Digital Easy for Infor SunSystems.

 

Phase 2 - Making Tax Digital

To be fully compliant in future, companies will have to exclude manual intervention or re-keying of data once it’s entered on the finance system. This means that bridging tools that take a file and pass it across to the Making Tax Digital interface, but do not hold a link back to the source data will be non compliant. A straight and limited bridging tool is hence no longer a solution unless the data can come from an extraction.  

These are examples of what will be permitted digital links:

  • linked cells in spreadsheets
  • emailing a spreadsheet containing digital records so the information can be imported into another software product
  • transferring a set of digital records onto a portable device, such as pen drive, memory stick, flash drive, and physically giving this to someone else to import that data into their software
  • XML, CSV import and export, download and upload of files
  • automated data transfer
  • API transfer.

Once data has been entered into your software solution used to keep and maintain digital records, any further transfer or change of that data must be done using digital links and not manual manipulation. Each piece of software that you use must be digitally linked to create the entire link i.e Infor SunSystems >> MTD solution >> HMRC. This applies to moving VAT records between software and MS Excel and calculating the 9 box figures.

When the soft landing period is over, cut and paste and copy and paste to select and move information, whether that’s within a software program, or between software programs, will no longer be permitted. HMRC won’t accept it as a digital link going forward.

If your current source is from a spreadsheet, then going forward the data will need to be digitally transferred from the record of not i.e: it needs to be extracted into your spreadsheet or exported directly from Infor SunSystems. Whilst you can currently email a spreadsheet containing digital records to import into another software solution, manipulation of the data once in a spreadsheet will no longer be acceptable. If you do not have a direct extract to Excel from Infor SunSystems, then note that this will no longer be permitted.

Phase 2 not only requires the stringent implementation of the 'digital' journey with no manual intervention but also the start of fines for failure to comply with any part of the MTD rules.