Pre VAT Reg number invoice payment receipts.

Hi, I'm sure this has been asked thousands of times so I apologise in advance. I recently started a courier business as a sole trader (16th August 2023). I decided to voluntarily register for VAT as I hope that one day my turnover will pass the mandatory threshold. My registration number arrived several weeks after I have started trading and was dated 16th August 2023. In the period between start of trading and knowledge of my VAT number, I had issued several invoices without VAT and subsequently received payment with no VAT included. Being a little wet behind the ears, I hadn't realised that I will need to pay retrospective VAT for these early invoices. However, I am not entirely clear on how to do this. I am using cash based accounting. Can you advise please? Kind regards Steve

Presumably your customers are businesses (Amazon, Evri, DPD, etc). If so, then you can raise a VAT only invoice that covers the sales you made from date of registration (16/08/23) through to the date you actually started charging VAT on your invoices. The customer should have no issue with paying your VAT only invoice as they (the business customer) can reclaim VAT and so it is no financial impact on the customer. Best to agree it with their payments team in advance out of courtesy.

Hi,

If you have been making taxable supplies since you have been registered then you should have been accounting for VAT on these supplies even in the absence of a VAT number. The guidance below explains how to account for VAT in this scenario:

Who should register for VAT (VAT Notice 700/1)

You will therefore need to account for the VAT on these supplies. We would recommend contacting the customers to see if they are willing to pay the VAT over to you although they under no legal obligation to do so.

You can see guidance on cash accounting here:

Starting to use the Cash Accounting Scheme

Thank you.