ABC VAT Bridge support

HMRC recently updated their servers to remove outdated insecure security protocols, so if you are running an unsupported version of Windows (ie pre Windows 10 or MacOS 10.11), it is very likely that your computer can no longer connect securely to HMRC's servers.

To submit your tax return to HMRC you would need to use a different computer, or upgrade your computer to Windows 10 or newer, or MacOS 10.11 or newer.

We are sorry about this situation but unfortunately, it is not something over which we have any control.

Please contact us if you would like a refund of your purchase.

Yes - ABC VAT Bridge allows data from the spreadsheet to be imported in to the VAT return without manual entry of data or copy+paste, so it constitutes part of the digital link from the source data to the VAT return submission. Note that to be compliant, the values pulled in for the VAT return boxes must themselves be digitally linked to the source data. If the spreadsheet is your master electronic record, then the values for the VAT return boxes should be formulas, e.g. to sum up sales & purchases from other cells within the spreadsheet; if the spreadsheet is exported from another system, then that export can be part of the digital link, since no manual data entry or copy+paste is required

HMRC set out the digital record-keeping requirements at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/vat-notice-70022-making-tax-digital-for-vat/vat-notice-70022-making-tax-digital-for-vat#digital-record-keeping.

ABC VAT Bridge can import from Excel 2007+ (.xlsx or .xlst) or OpenOffice/LibreOffice (.ods

Yes. ABC VAT Bridge can be used to submit returns monthly, quarterly or annually.

ABC VAT Bridge uses credits on a pay-as-you-go basis. Each credit corresponds to one month in the period of the VAT return submitted - so submitting a monthly return uses 1 credit, a quarterly return uses 3 credits, and an annual return uses 12 credits.

That message means that, unfortunately, the HMRC system is unavailable - either because they have taken it down for maintenance or there is an unexpected issue.

You can check the HMRC status pages below for information - although these are sometimes slow to report issues:

• HMRC MTD for VAT status availability page
• HMRC API status summary

Please try again later - if the outage has affected your availability to meet a submission deadline, you should mention that in a 'Reasonable excuse claim' against any penalty. We very much hope these outages become much fewer and further between as MTD matures.

Yes, when you first run ABC VAT Bridge you can choose whether to submit as a business or as an agent and in either case, you can add multiple businesses. The difference is that if you submit as an agent, you use the same agent Government Gateway ID to submit for all the businesses, so you only connect ABC VAT Bridge to that one Gateway ID, whereas if you use ABC VAT Bridge as a business, each time you add a business you are prompted to sign in to the HMRC website to grant authority, so you can use a business-specific Gateway ID for each one.

After you have added the first business you can add the others by selecting 'Add a business' in the app menu and you can switch between them using 'Manage businesses' in that same menu (or relaunching the app).

ABC VAT Bridge uses a pay-as-you-go system of credits, where 12 months of credit allows you to submit VAT returns covering 12 months for a business, e.g. 4 quarterly returns for one business or 2 quarterly returns each for 2 businesses, or 1 quarterly return for each of 4 businesses etc.

If you purchase one licence, and top it up with credit via the 'Manage licence & credit' menu, all submissions for any business will use up credit from that one pot. If you wish, you can purchase a separate licence for each business and then switch between them each time you switch between businesses, but that is more fiddly.