Before you start
- VAT, PAYE & NIS filings, under Tax & filing, shows when the Payroll or Books service is on. If it's missing from your menu, press the account button at the foot of the menu, then Settings › Services. Tick Books and press Save services. Only the owner can do this.
- If your business is registered for VAT, the business owner switches VAT on. In Settings › VAT, from the account button, tick Use VAT in this business and Registered for VAT with the BIR, then press Save VAT settings. VAT shows while the Invoices & VAT service is on.
Until VAT is on, the VAT summary says why its totals are 0.00 and links to Open VAT settings.
Check your VAT summary
Open Tax & filing › VAT, PAYE & NIS filings. The Filings due shortcut on the Accounting Overview opens it too. Set Start and End to the months your VAT return covers, and press Apply. The VAT summary shows:
- VAT output: the VAT on your posted invoices, less any credit notes;
- VAT input: the VAT you can claim back on posted bills and on expenses;
- VAT due: output minus input.
Transactions lists each invoice, credit note, bill and expense counted. Export CSV downloads the list.
Only posted invoices and bills count. A draft is left out until you post it.
Work out the quarterly levies
The Green Fund Levy and Business Levy are quarterly taxes on your gross sales or receipts. Ask your accountant whether you file on Posted invoice sales or Recorded receipts.
Press Quarterly levies. It opens on the latest quarter with sales in it. To see another, choose the Year and Quarter, then that Basis. Type a Manual adjustment if your accountant gives you one, and press Apply.
The page shows your Sales/receipts excluding VAT, the Green Fund Levy at 0.3% and the Business Levy at 0.6%, all in TT$. Quarter support lists the invoices or receipts used.
Fill in a tax form
Fillable Tax Forms is further down the VAT, PAYE & NIS filings page. Choose a form under Templates:
- PAYE / Health Surcharge Monthly Return
- PAYE Annual Return / TD4 Summary
- VAT Return Worksheet
- NIS Contributions (NI184 / NI187)
- Health Surcharge Worksheet
The payroll forms fill in from your finalised and paid pay runs with a pay date in the period shown. Change the dates, or type over any figure you need to. To undo your changes, press Use Payroll Data: it fills the form from payroll again for the dates you chose. Where a form has an employee table, choose a person under Employee name to see their amounts.
The VAT Return Worksheet fills in your VAT registration number only. Type its figures from the VAT summary.
Press Export PDF to download the form. A copy is kept with your records and goes into future audit packs.
For NIS, Open official NI forms takes you to your finalised pay runs. The official NI184 and NI187 are made there: see Bank files, statutory exports and NI forms.
Open filing guidance opens the official instructions for the form. Check each form before you use it: you submit your returns to the BIR and the National Insurance Board (NIB) yourself.
Track each return in the filing calendar
The Filing calendar, at the top of the page, lists each return with its Period, Due date, Status and Payment. A late return shows Overdue in red. The tabs show what's Due now (the default), what's Open, what's Filed, or All.
Filing a return and paying it are separate:
- Once you've filed, press Mark filed on its row, check the date, type the BIR reference if you have one (the acknowledgement number), and press Save filed.
- When you pay it, press Record payment. The amount is filled in from that month's payroll (NIS includes the employee and employer shares) or, for VAT, from the VAT period. Choose the bank or cash account you paid from and the date, and press Record payment. Your books then show it paid, so the Overview's Statutory due goes down. For NIS, choose How paid (Cash, Cheque or Online / bank transfer): the NI187 fills in its method of payment from it, and for a cheque, put the bank and cheque number in Reference. To fix it later, press Change how paid under the payment. A payment recorded by mistake can be reversed on the return's page.
When a month's payroll has no PAYE (or no NIS or Health Surcharge), that return shows Nothing to pay by itself and isn't counted as overdue.
Press a return's name to open its page. There you can mark it Prepared while you work on it, change the filed details, and keep the form PDF with it under Linked exports.
The calendar runs six months ahead and adds the coming months by itself. It starts with the filings you chose in setup: PAYE, Health Surcharge and TD4 if you're PAYE registered, NIS if you're NIS registered, and VAT if you're VAT registered.
To add another return, such as the Business Levy or Green Fund Levy, open Tax & filing › Compliance. Under On calendar, choose Yes on its row and press Save. It's on the calendar straight away.
Get reminder emails
Owners and accountants get an email before each return is due. It lists the returns due, with a button to open the filing calendar. If a return still isn't marked filed on its due day, another email comes that morning.
The first email comes 7 days before the due date. To change the number of days, or to stop the emails, open Tax & filing › Compliance and change Reminder emails.
Good to know
- A payroll form shows zeros? Set End at the top of VAT, PAYE & NIS filings to your last pay date or later, and press Apply.
What's next
See how these figures land in your books with Reports, your books and the audit pack.