Since 1^st April 2019, HMRC have been gradually implementing ‘Making Tax Digital.’ To improve efficiency, all VAT-registered businesses with a taxable turnover above the threshold of £85,000 have had to keep digital records and complete tax returns using compatible software.

HMRC have said that Making Tax Digital is a vital part of the government’s plan to “make it easier for individuals and businesses to get their tax right and keep on top of their affairs.”

It is expected in the near future that they’ll extend Making Tax Digital to all VAT-registered businesses but there have been very few details on this to date. However, it is possible to voluntarily sign up and in fact, HMRC strongly encourages this.

HMRC have stated that the digital records you need to keep include:

• The time of supply (tax point), the value of the supply (excluding VAT and the rate of VAT charged for each supply)
• Information about your business, including business name and principal business address.
• Your business’ VAT registration number and details of any VAT accounting schemes you use.

To make the change to making tax digital, it will be soon required for all invoices and information detailing VAT to be electronic - this is where BridalLive can help.

Read More: Bridal Buyer’s tech guru, Chris Partridge, takes a look at the software your business needs to help get your money in order

What is BridalLive?

BridalLive is an all-in-one retail management system designed to make running a bridal boutique easier. It allows online appointment bookings along with customer, inventory and order management, with automated workflows and marketing features.

As the leading Bridal Shop software, it is modern, user-friendly and includes all customer support. Shops are more organised and are working smarter with the help of BridalLive. Through the use of the available workflow and marketing automation features, shops can recapture a lot of their time which can then be reinvested into more valuable areas of the business.

In addition to this, the software can also manage transactions and orders which will streamline the process and help reduce any human error. The system is regularly updated with new features requested by customers.

Read More: Your Guide to End of Year Taxes

So how can BridalLive help with the new laws for digital tax?

“Having an electronic, single point of record for a bridal business is imperative in today’s environment and provides shops with peace of mind as they can access their operations from anywhere on any device,” says Tim McKee.

“Reports are also available as all of the aspects of the business work together in BridalLive to provide the shop with specific data, making bookkeeping easier. Having every record, especially invoices including the VAT breakdown in a digital format, will help shops become compliant for the new eInvoicing laws rolling out in the UK in April 2020,” he adds.

Although BridalLive will be able to keep records digitally, it will not be able to submit VAT returns so an external software will be needed for this. The software you use to submit your digital tax returns will need to be compatible with HMRC – examples include Xero, Quickbooks and Zoho.

For more information contact Tim at tim@bridallive.com or alternatively visit the website here.