The stock book and purchase invoices
The records the margin scheme asks you to keep for what you buy second-hand, over the dates you choose. It opens on your current VAT period. Needs Cost tracking.
Purchase invoices
When you buy from the public you make out the invoice yourself. Every till deal, show buy or show deal, and buylist payout gets one, numbered in order (P00001, P00002 …): one per seller per deal, however many cards, not one per card. Stock you record by hand as second-hand, with Record a delivery or Add a variant, gets one too. PDF opens it: your name and address, the seller's name and address, the number, the date, what was bought line by line with each lot's stock number, and the total price, with no VAT shown and the words Margin Scheme – second-hand goods.
HMRC expects the seller's name and address on these at any price. They are never required to buy anything, so a purchase made without them is marked No purchase record. The goods still sell as normal; on an HMRC check the margin scheme could be refused for them and the sale taxed on its full price, so it is worth filling in the seller when you can.
Undoing a purchase (a show buy undone, a buylist line reset or rejected after it was taken in) reduces its invoice, and an invoice with nothing left on it is marked Voided rather than deleted, so the numbers never have gaps.
The stock book
| Column | What it is |
|---|---|
| Stock no. | The lot's own number. It is also printed on the purchase invoice. |
| Bought / Invoice / Seller | When it was bought, its purchase invoice and who sold it. |
| Description / Qty / Cost | What it is, how many and what they cost you. |
| Treatment | Pool: £500 or under, accounted for under global accounting on the VAT report. Item by item: over £500, so its own sale is matched to it. Standard: bought on a VAT invoice, or while the margin scheme was off, so it sells with VAT on the full price. |
| Sold | For an item over £500, the order it sold on, the date, the selling price, the margin and the VAT due on it. |
Stock book CSV and Purchase invoices CSV download the same figures for your accountant.
Changes after a VAT period has ended
A filed return does not move. Once a lot is in the pool, what it added to that period's purchases is fixed. If you later correct its cost, tick or untick Margin scheme, or undo the purchase after its VAT period has ended, the difference is booked as a dated adjustment in the current period instead, and the VAT report lists it there.