Prepare Your VAT201

OxyAccounting builds the VAT201 from transaction-level VAT and reconciles it to the input and output VAT control accounts.

Before the first return

• Enable VAT under Company > Settings only if the business is registered.
• Set the reporting basis and filing category under VAT > VAT Periods.
• Check the VAT treatment on every sales, purchase and expense line. Standard-rated, zero-rated, zero-rated export, exempt and out of scope are different treatments, and each lands on its own VAT201 field.
• The treatment is captured per line on every document type — quotations, invoices, credit notes, purchase orders and supplier invoices — and is carried through when a quotation becomes an invoice or an invoice is credited.

Prepare a period

1. Go to VAT > VAT Periods. Generate upcoming periods or select Create Period and enter its dates.
2. Open the period and review the VAT201 fields, transaction summary and warnings.
3. Open VAT Exceptions and resolve errors. Mark an exception resolved only after correcting or checking the underlying transaction.
4. Review documents dated across the period boundary and confirm that their supply dates place them in the intended return.
5. Compare the return with the Ledger Reconciliation. Investigate any difference between fields 13/19 and the output/input VAT control-account movements.
6. Add a manual adjustment only when you have a clear VAT201 field, direction, amount, reference and reason.
7. Generate the VAT201 export, review it, and lock the period after approval.

Submit and settle

Use the generated figures to complete the return in SARS eFiling. OxyAccounting does not submit it for you and is not SARS-certified. After the return is locked and the payment or refund is known, a company administrator can settle it against the ledger.

Claim VAT on goods you import

VAT on imported goods is not claimed from your supplier's invoice. It is claimed from your customs bill of entry, on a value SARS works out rather than the price you paid, and it falls in the period the goods were released. Go to VAT > Import VAT and add one entry per bill of entry.

1. Enter the bill of entry number and the date the goods were released. That date decides which return the VAT lands on, not the date on your supplier's invoice.
2. Take the customs value, the uplift and the duties straight off the bill of entry. The uplift is 10% for goods from outside the Southern African Customs Union and 0% within it. We work the VAT out for you and show it as you type.
3. Choose the bank account the VAT was paid from, and tick capital goods for equipment, vehicles and machinery — they are declared on a separate line of the VAT201.
4. Confirm you hold the receipt for the VAT payment. SARS needs the bill of entry and the receipt together before the deduction may be taken.
5. Select Post to books. The VAT is debited to Input VAT against the bank account, and appears on the return for the period the goods were released.

Claim bad-debt relief

From the VAT period, open Bad Debt to review eligible invoices that have remained unpaid for more than 12 months. Confirm a claim only after checking the legal requirements. The claim creates the credit and VAT relief entries, and an invoice can only be claimed once.