Making Tax Digital for IFS
At a glance
Making Tax Digital (MTD) is a government initiative aiming to simplify the way businesses record and report their income, expenditures and taxes.
MTD for value-added tax (VAT) requires VAT registered businesses with taxable turnover above the VAT registration threshold to keep records in digital form and file their VAT Returns using software.
Baker Tilly Digital Making Tax Digital for IFS provides a digital link between IFS applications and HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC). This way, IFS will record all sales, purchases and expenses in a digital format and then transfer the totals for each of these to application programming interface (API)-enabled software which prepares the VAT Return.
The Baker Tilly Digital MTD for IFS is fully compliant with the relevant HMRC requirements, including the digital link to IFS and API submission to HMRC allowing you to use your IFS platform to submit all necessary information on your behalf.
API-enabled solution
The API-enabled software has the necessary functionality to prepare the VAT Return and submit this to HMRC via an API.
Solution overview
Baker Tilly Digital uses an integrated app within your IFS platform to gather records and many IFS customers are already using IFS to complete their VAT returns based on data that is available in the system. When developing Baker Tilly Digital MTD for IFS, our strategy has been to re-use as much of this existing process as possible, to ensure simplicity and success.
The Baker Tilly Digital MTD application is based on that same process and our application acts as a digital link that retrieves the VAT related data from IFS and transmits it securely to HMRC via their API. The solution supports all versions of IFS and uses the correct IFS connector depending on your license model.
There are two components as part of the software package:
- MTD templates (based on IFS data) that collate the VAT information (whether from tax ledger, general ledger or sales, purchase, expense modules)
- A client application that extracts this data digitally, presents it in the format for submission, and submits it via the HMRC API
Setting up the solution
- On-site/remote installation
- Check Tax Codes are configured and help to setup if required
- A successful test run against a previous VAT return to validate the configuration is correct
- Training on how to use MTD software