Antiques Ledger: Margin Scheme
The stock book that HMRC's VAT margin scheme requires of an antiques dealer, kept as you trade. Photograph what you buy and say what you paid. Photograph it again when it sells. The book, the margin and the VAT due look after themselves, and at the end of the quarter you print the book. Everything stays on your phone, with a backup copy in your own iCloud, until you send it somewhere yourself.
Before you start
Open Settings from the menu and enter your business name, address and VAT registration number. They are printed at the head of the book and on every invoice, and a sales invoice under the scheme must show them. Set when your VAT quarters end (it is on your VAT registration certificate). If you already number your stock and your invoices, open Numbering in Settings: give the stock numbers and the sales invoices your own prefix and starting number, and the app carries on from the system you use now. Numbers already in the book never change.
Just bought an item
Tap Just bought an item. The camera opens; take the picture and tap Use Photo. The app is now listening: say what it is and what you paid, for example "Georgian oak candle box, about 1780, paid forty five pounds". Your words appear as you speak and the price is picked out of them; tap the price to correct it. Choose who you bought it from, or type a name and address, and say whether they are a private seller or the trade. Tap Save to the stock book. The next stock number is assigned for you and is never reused.
When you buy from a private person the scheme says you must make out the purchase invoice yourself. The app does it as you save, numbered to match the stock number, with the wording HMRC requires. When you buy from a dealer or an auction house, enter their invoice number and file their invoice with your book.
Just sold an item
Tap Just sold an item and photograph the piece. The app compares your photograph with the photographs of everything still in stock and shows the closest few. Tap the one you sold. If it is not among them, scroll down: the rest of your stock is there, with a search by words, number or seller. Type the selling price and the margin and the VAT due appear as you type. Add the buyer's name and address, the date and how they paid, and save. The sales invoice is numbered in sequence for you.
You can also record a sale from My stock: open the item and tap Record the sale.
Putting something right
Open the item from My stock. Change on the Bought card corrects the price, the seller, the date or the kind of goods. Change on the Sold card corrects the sale, or undoes it if the item did not sell after all or the sale went against the wrong line. The stock number itself never changes.
The margin and the VAT
Under the margin scheme the VAT due on a sale is one sixth of the margin: the selling price less the price you paid. The app rounds it down to the penny. If an item sells for what it cost or less, no VAT is due, and the loss is not set against anything else. Restoration, repairs and carriage can be noted on the item as your own costs, but the scheme does not allow them to be added to the purchase price, so they never change the VAT.
The book and the VAT return
Tap The book. It opens on the current VAT quarter; the arrows move between quarters. It shows Box 1 (the VAT due on the margins), Box 6 (selling prices less that VAT) and Box 7 (purchase prices) for margin scheme goods. Anything you sell outside the scheme is added by you or your accountant, and nothing from the scheme goes in boxes 8 and 9. Print or share the quarter's book as a PDF in HMRC's columns, send your accountant the same columns as a spreadsheet, or print the whole book for an inspection.
Trying it, and unlocking it
Your first five items are free, and everything works while you try it: buying, selling, the invoices, the printed book, the spreadsheet and both backups. To add a sixth item the app needs unlocking, and there are two ways: £39.99 a year, or £129.99 once and it is yours for good.
What is in your book is always yours. Whether you have paid or not, and if a subscription ends, everything you have already recorded stays fully usable: look it up, sell it, print the book, send the spreadsheet, back it up. The unlock is only ever needed to add new items. HMRC can ask for these records six years on, and the app will never stand between you and them.
The yearly subscription renews automatically each year until you cancel. Cancel at any time in the iPhone's Settings: tap your name, then Subscriptions; or in the app under Settings, The unlock, Manage or cancel the subscription. It runs to the end of the year you have paid for. Buying once never renews and includes Family Sharing. If you change phones, tap Restore purchases on the unlock screen. Purchases are made with your Apple Account and refunds are handled by Apple at reportaproblem.apple.com.
Backups
HMRC expects these records kept for six years, and a phone can be lost or broken in a moment. The app keeps a backup copy of the book in your own iCloud, automatically and free, whenever the book changes. Tap Backup to see when it was last saved. It needs iCloud Drive switched on (in the iPhone's Settings, tap your name, then iCloud) and some room in your iCloud: the entries take almost none, and the photographs about a megabyte each. If your iCloud fills up, the page says so plainly, and the backup carries on by itself once there is room.
A new phone, or the app deleted and put back: sign in to the same Apple ID and open the app. While the book is empty it looks in your iCloud and offers the book back; it can take iCloud a minute or two to show it. The entries come back at once and the photographs follow. You can also bring back an earlier copy from Backup, Restore from iCloud. It is a backup and not a sync: two phones do not share a book.
A backup file of your own is the second copy: every item and photograph in one file, encrypted with a passphrase you choose, to keep in Files, on a computer or anywhere else. Nobody can recover that passphrase, so write it down somewhere safe. To put it back, open the file from Files, or use Restore from a backup file. Printing the book each quarter is the other copy worth having.
Common questions
- Does the seller have to sign the purchase invoice? No. HMRC's notice asks for the seller's name and address, yours, the date, the stock number, a description and the total price. It does not ask for a signature.
- Does it do Global Accounting? No. It keeps the standard scheme's item-by-item stock book. Dealers who use Global Accounting for low-value goods can still keep their better pieces here.
- Does it send my VAT return? No. It gives you the three figures; your accounting software or accountant files the return.
- Does anything go to the cloud? Only a backup copy to your own iCloud account, which you can switch off. The app has no servers and no account, and nothing ever comes to us.
- Can I use it on two phones at once? Not as one book. The iCloud copy is a backup, not a sync, so that two phones can never hand out the same stock number. Keep the book on one phone.
- The photograph did not find my item. It offers the closest four by appearance; a very different angle or poor light can push the right one down. Scroll to "Not one of these?" and search your stock.
- The app says it cannot listen. Allow the microphone and speech recognition for the app in Settings. On a phone or in a language that cannot recognise speech on the device, the app will not send your voice to a server, so type instead.
Contact
Anything at all, including bugs and suggestions: conor@conorhannah.com.