Antiques Ledger: Margin Scheme

If you sell antiques under the VAT margin scheme, HMRC requires a stock book: every item with its stock number, the date you bought it, who from and what you paid, and later who bought it, for how much, the margin and the VAT due. Most dealers keep it in a notebook or a spreadsheet, catch up at the end of the quarter, and dread the inspection. This app keeps the book as you trade. JUST BOUGHT AN ITEM One button. Photograph the piece. The microphone is already listening, so say what it is and what you paid: "Georgian oak candle box, paid forty five pounds". The price is heard from your words, the next stock number is assigned, and it is in the book. Add who you bought it from with a tap on a recent seller, or type a name and address. For a private seller the app makes out the purchase invoice the scheme requires, numbered and worded correctly. JUST SOLD AN ITEM Photograph it again. The app compares the picture with the photographs of your stock, on the phone, and shows the closest items. Tap the right one and type the price. The margin and the VAT due appear as you type: one sixth of the margin, and nothing at all on a loss. The sales invoice is numbered in sequence, carries HMRC's exact wording for the scheme, and never shows VAT separately. THE BOOK AND THE VAT RETURN Open the book on any VAT quarter. Box 1, Box 6 and Box 7 are worked out from the lines. Print the book as a PDF in HMRC's own columns, purchases on the left and sales on the right, with the totals at the foot, or send your accountant the same columns as a spreadsheet. A mistake can be corrected and a sale can be undone. If you already number your stock and your invoices, set your own prefixes and starting numbers and the app carries on from there. YOUR BOOK, AND NOBODY ELSE'S A stock book holds names, addresses and prices. There is no account, no sign-in and no server of ours: the book lives on your phone, and nothing in it ever comes to us. Dictation and the photograph matching both run on the phone. It works in a field with no signal. Lock it with Face ID. SAFE IF THE PHONE IS LOST HMRC expects these records kept for six years, and a phone can be lost in a moment. A backup copy goes to your own iCloud automatically whenever the book changes. On a new phone the app finds it and offers the book back, photographs and all. It is a backup, not a sync, and it is yours: we cannot see it. For a second copy, make a backup file sealed with a passphrase only you know. TRY IT, THEN UNLOCK IT Your first five items are free, with everything working: buying, selling, the invoices, the printed book, the spreadsheet and the backups. To keep adding after that, unlock the app: £39.99 a year, or £129.99 once and it is yours for good. What is already in your book is always yours to look up, sell, print and back up, whether you are paying or not. The yearly subscription renews automatically until you cancel, and you can cancel at any time in your Apple Account settings. Buying once never renews and includes Family Sharing. Terms of Use: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/ WHAT IT IS NOT It keeps the standard margin scheme's item-by-item stock book for dealers in the United Kingdom. It does not do Global Accounting, it does not submit your VAT return, and it is a record-keeping aid, not tax advice. The rules are HMRC's, in VAT Notice 718.