VAT

If your business is registered for VAT, GST or sales tax, PulseBooks calculates it on your documents, tracks what you owe, and turns a period's activity into a filable return. If you do not charge tax, leave it off and the whole area stays out of your way.

Tax settings

Go to Settings → Tax:

• Enable Tax — the master switch. When off, no tax is calculated anywhere.
• Tax Label — what the tax is called on your invoices: VAT, GST, Sales Tax.
• Tax Rate (%) — the default rate applied to taxable line items.
• Tax Registration Number — your VAT/GST/tax ID, shown on invoices.
• Tax-Inclusive Pricing — when on, prices you enter on invoices already include tax.
• VAT Period Length — how many months a return covers: monthly, bi-monthly or quarterly. Check with your accountant which period you are registered for.
• VAT Basis — invoice basis declares VAT in the period an invoice is dated. The payments basis (declaring it when you are actually paid) is not yet supported: if you select it, VAT returns refuse to generate rather than hand you invoice-basis figures that would be wrong for your business.

VAT on invoices and expenses

With tax enabled, taxable line items on invoices carry tax at your default rate — this is your output VAT, the tax you collect and owe onwards. Tax on your expenses and bills is your input VAT, which you can generally reclaim. Both post automatically to dedicated control accounts in your chart of accounts, so your VAT position accumulates as you work.

The VAT preview

Go to Accounting → VAT. Pick a period — the options follow your period length, counted from the start of your financial year, and land on the most recent period that has closed — or type a custom date range. The page shows the period's position live:

• Output VAT and Input VAT, with the net payable as the headline. A negative net means a refund is due, and the page says so in words.
• The turnover behind the tax: standard-rated, zero-rated and exempt supplies, credit note adjustments, and net purchases.

The preview is a pure read. It records nothing, and the figures move as your books do. If documents have been captured into a period you already filed, the page tells you: nothing needs undoing — a filed return stays as filed — and you pick those documents up in the return you are working on now.

Drafting a return

With a period selected, click Open a draft for it. Opening a draft records the period so you can file it — it declares nothing and posts nothing until you file. Only one return can cover a period, so if a draft or filed return already exists for the dates you picked, the page points you at it instead.

Filing a return

On a draft return, click File this return. PulseBooks recomputes the figures fresh and shows you the period and the net position before you confirm. Filing is a one-way door:

• The return's period and figures are frozen. There is no un-file and no delete.
• A clearing entry is posted to your ledger, dated the last day of the period, moving the period's VAT out of the control accounts. A nil return posts nothing — but it is still a real filing.
• Who filed it, and when, is recorded on the return.

If something changes afterwards — a late supplier invoice, a correction — it goes into the next period's return, not this one. After filing, PulseBooks suggests locking the period so the books behind the filed figures stop moving; see Period close & year end.

PulseBooks prepares the figures; submitting them to your revenue authority is still your job.

Reports

The Tax Summary report (under Reports, on the Pro plan and above) shows tax collected and tax paid over any date range, broken down by category, with the net position — a looser, at-a-glance view alongside the formal return workflow. See Reports.