How to complete a VAT201 return, field by field
The VAT201 is a short form that is easy to fill in wrongly, because most of the ways to get it wrong still produce a return that adds up.
If you are a registered VAT vendor, the VAT201 is the return you submit to SARS for each tax period. It is not a long form. It is a list of numbered fields, and the whole difficulty is knowing which of your transactions belongs on which field. Put a zero-rated sale on the exempt line and your VAT payable is unchanged, your return balances, and it is still wrong.
This article walks the form in its own field order. It is written for a business owner filing their own return, not for an accountant, and it assumes nothing beyond knowing that you are registered and that a period has ended.
Which return, and when it is due
SARS puts every vendor into a category that decides how often you file. Most small businesses are Category A or Category B, which are both two-monthly and differ only in which months they end: Category A ends in January, March, May, July, September and November, Category B in the even months. Category C is monthly and applies once taxable supplies exceed R30 million in a twelve-month period. Category D is six-monthly and mostly agricultural, and Category E is annual and applies to certain companies and trusts letting property.
The deadline depends on how you file. Submitting and paying through eFiling gives you until the last business day of the month following the end of the tax period. Filing on paper at a branch brings that forward to the 25th. If the return is late, penalties and interest follow the payment rather than the submission, so a filed return with no payment does not stop the clock.
Invoice basis or payments basis, and why it is hard to change later
There is a second choice sitting underneath the whole return: when a transaction counts. On the invoice basis, which is the default and what most vendors are on, VAT is declared when a document is issued or received. You declare output VAT on an invoice the moment you raise it, whether or not the customer has paid you. On the payments basis, available to smaller vendors on application, VAT follows the cash instead.
Decide this before you start transacting. Switching once you are carrying unpaid customer invoices and approved supplier invoices is not a settings change: it needs a one-time change-of-basis adjustment under the VAT Act, because the transactions straddling the switch would otherwise be counted twice or not at all. That is a conversation with your accountant, not a toggle.
Part A: output tax, field by field
Part A is everything you supplied. Note the trap built into the very first field: field 1 wants the VAT-inclusive value of the supply, not the VAT. The tax itself goes on field 4. Several fields on this form ask for a value and several ask for a tax amount, and they sit next to each other.
| Field | What it asks for | What lands on it |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Standard-rated supplies, excluding capital goods (VAT-inclusive value) | Ordinary sales invoices at 15%, less any credit notes against them |
| 4 | Output tax on field 1 | The VAT actually charged, which is the tax fraction of field 1 |
| 1A | Standard-rated supplies of capital goods (VAT-inclusive value) | Selling equipment, a vehicle or machinery out of the business |
| 4A | Output tax on field 1A | Computed from field 1A |
| 2 | Zero-rated supplies, excluding exports (value) | Supplies the Act taxes at 0%, such as certain basic foodstuffs |
| 2A | Zero-rated exports (value) | Goods exported, where you hold the documentary proof |
| 3 | Exempt and non-supplies (value) | Supplies the Act removes from VAT altogether |
| 5 to 9 | Accommodation | Rare outside hospitality, and adjustment-only for most small businesses |
| 10 | Change in use and second-hand goods (VAT-inclusive) | Business assets taken to private use, and certain second-hand dealings |
| 11 | Output tax on field 10 | Computed from field 10 |
| 12 | Other, and imported services (VAT amount) | Services bought from abroad for non-taxable use, and other output adjustments |
| 13 | TOTAL OUTPUT TAX | Fields 4 + 4A + 9 + 11 + 12 |
The tax fraction is 15/115, not 15%. On a VAT-inclusive R1,150 the VAT is R150, not R172.50. This is the single most common arithmetic error on a hand-prepared return, and it always overstates what you owe.
Zero-rated, exempt and out of scope are three different things
All three produce no VAT, which is exactly why the distinction is so easy to lose. They land on different fields, and getting them wrong misstates your return even though the tax comes out the same.
- Zero-rated is a taxable supply, taxed at 0%. It goes on field 2 or 2A, it counts towards your registration threshold, and you keep the right to claim input VAT on what it cost you to make.
- Exempt is a supply the Act removes from VAT entirely. It goes on field 3, it does not count towards the threshold, and input VAT attributable to it is not claimable.
- Out of scope is not a supply at all. A bank transfer between your own accounts, a salary, a dividend. It belongs on no VAT201 field.
Part B: input tax, field by field
Part B is everything supplied to you. Unlike Part A, these fields want the VAT amount, not the value. The split that matters most is capital against other, because SARS wants to see what you spent on assets separately from what you spent on running the business.
| Field | What it asks for | What lands on it |
|---|---|---|
| 14 | Capital goods and services supplied to you (VAT amount) | VAT on equipment, vehicles and machinery bought locally |
| 14A | Capital goods imported (VAT amount) | VAT on imported assets, claimed off the bill of entry |
| 15 | Other goods and services supplied to you (VAT amount) | VAT on stock, rent, subscriptions, professional fees and the rest |
| 15A | Other goods imported (VAT amount) | VAT on imported trading stock and consumables |
| 16 | Change in use adjustment | Bringing a private asset into business use |
| 17 | Bad debts | Relief on output VAT already declared on invoices you have written off |
| 18 | Other adjustments | Anything else, with a reason you can defend |
| 19 | TOTAL INPUT TAX | Fields 14 + 14A + 15 + 15A + 16 + 17 + 18 |
Field 20 is the answer: field 13 less field 19. A positive number is payable to SARS. A negative one is a refund, and refunds get looked at more closely than payments, so a period that swings into refund is a period worth checking twice before you submit.
The dates decide the period, and the invoice date is not always the date
A transaction belongs to the period in which the supply happened, not the period in which you got round to capturing it. For most invoices those are the same day and the question never comes up. For an invoice raised on the 2nd of a new period for work delivered on the 28th of the old one, they are not, and the invoice belongs on the earlier return.
This is worth being deliberate about, because it is the most common reason a return quietly disagrees with the ledger behind it. Documents sitting a day or two either side of a period boundary are the ones to look at.
Three claims that need paperwork before they need arithmetic
Imported goods. You do not claim import VAT from your supplier's invoice. You claim it from the 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, not the period they were ordered or paid for. You must hold both the bill of entry and the receipt for the VAT payment at the time you submit the return. Without both, the deduction is not available yet, however obviously real the expense is.
Bad debts. Where you have declared output VAT on an invoice, written the debt off, and more than twelve months have passed since it became due, you may claim relief on field 17. It is relief on the VAT you already paid over on a sale you never got paid for. Claim it once, and be able to show the write-off.
Input VAT generally. You need a valid tax invoice. A card slip, a bank statement line or a supplier statement is not one. If the document does not carry the supplier's VAT number and the other requirements of a tax invoice, the input VAT on it is not claimable, no matter how legitimate the purchase was. We covered what a valid tax invoice must contain in our article on cheap online invoicing.
Reconcile the return to your ledger before you submit it
This is the step most small businesses skip, and it is the one that catches real errors. If your books are on a double-entry ledger, output VAT accumulates in a liability account and input VAT in an asset account as you go. Field 13 should agree with the movement on the output VAT control account for the period, and field 19 with the movement on the input VAT control account.
When they do not agree, the difference is telling you something specific: a document dated into the wrong period, a VAT treatment captured incorrectly, a journal posted straight to a VAT account without a document behind it, or an adjustment made on one side only. A return that reconciles is a return you can defend. A return that does not is a guess with a total on it.
How OxyAccounting handles this
OxyAccounting builds the VAT201 from your transactions, in the SARS field order, rather than producing a generic tax report you then have to map onto the form yourself. The VAT treatment is captured per line on every document type and carried through when a quotation becomes an invoice or an invoice is credited, so the classification is made once, at the point you actually know the answer.
Before you file, the period shows a ledger reconciliation between fields 13 and 19 and the VAT control accounts, an exceptions list for transactions that need attention, and a warning on documents dated across the period boundary. Import VAT is captured per bill of entry and stays off the return until both the entry number and the payment receipt are recorded. Bad debt relief is offered on invoices unpaid for more than twelve months, and an invoice can only be claimed once. When the period is approved you lock it, which stops anything moving underneath a return you have already submitted.
Everything described above is part of the single R149/month plan, along with the double-entry ledger underneath it. There is no VAT tier. If you want to see it against your own numbers, the 14-day free trial needs no card, and the manual page on preparing a VAT201 walks the process screen by screen.