Forty monthly VAT returns: who goes looking for the missing receipts?

It's early November, and you know what has to happen by the end of December: the VAT return for November for all your clients who file monthly. According to the Dutch Tax Administration (Belastingdienst), a monthly return must be received no later than the last day of the following month, and the payment must also have been received within one month after the end of the period.

Filling in the return is rarely the problem. The searching beforehand is.

Where the hours go

Take an office with forty clients who file monthly. For each client you go through the same questions: which receipt is missing, which purchase invoice has not yet been booked, which sales invoice does not match the bank, which client has not yet submitted anything.

Suppose that takes ten minutes per client. That is a worked example, not a measurement at an existing office. But the sum is simple: forty times ten minutes is over six hours, and that is six hours before the first return has been filed.

What a role prepares

The Aangifte-assistent prepares tax returns for review, keeps track of deadlines and organises the underlying documentation. For this work, that means: a prepared return per client and an overview of what is still missing, so you don't have to search through folders and mailboxes yourself.

If you also have a lot of receipts and invoices to process, Boekhoudondersteuning helps with processing receipts, invoices and routine bookkeeping questions.

What you approve

A role files nothing. You get to see the prepared work, you approve or reject it, and only after your approval does anything happen. The first time, you can see this in a test run: you assess a result, not a promise.

That costs speed, and it is a choice. Approval does not get lighter as you have more clients. For a return that is submitted in your name or your client's, that is also the intention.

What it costs

The Aangifte-assistent costs €199 per month, with 20 tasks included and €7 per extra task. Boekhoudondersteuning costs €249 per month, with 25 tasks included and €6 per extra task. Amounts are per month excluding VAT.

There are no client cases to cite yet. What you can do is start a test run on one client and see for yourself what is ready.

Source: Belastingdienst, Wanneer moeten mijn btw-aangifte en mijn betaling binnen zijn? (belastingdienst.nl). This article is about the Netherlands.