When you start a new business the amount of paperwork and numbers you have to account for is overwhelming. You will learn that business paperwork is much more than just sending off an invoice and you'll have to learn it fast, before all the deadlines for HMRC, Company House and other reports start coming in.
So, you already know how to create an invoice, and you know you can do it easily with Debitoor. Now, it's time to take a look at your expenses and decide what you can take off or put on your reports to make sure you don't overpay (or underpay) your taxes.
VAT exempt expenses
Say you've paid car insurance for the van you're using for business. You would log it as an expense - it's something you've purchased that helps you to conduct your business. Now, you can put this expense in your annual report when you're filing your Self Assessment report. But you don't put it on your VAT report - as the car insurance is VAT-exempt.
There's a handful of categories that are also exempt from VAT, and you don't have to include those on your VAT forms. Don't worry - the VAT field for these expenses is already grayed out in Debitoor - so you don't have to figure out which expenses go on your VAT report and which don't.
It's just another little time-saving feature from Debitoor.
Adding expenses in Debitoor
All of the above expenses are set to "No VAT" rate. This means that you don't have to do any additional calculation - you will just enter your expenses as normal: a gross (full) amount from the expense receipt.
Not logging your expenses with Debitoor yet? Check the tutorial video below and see how easy it is to organize your business receipts all in one place.
