Dynamics 365 Business Central – How to remove the message “Your VAT return is overdue…” when the VAT return has been Submitted and Accepted

Introduction

The UK version of Business Central gives the ability to submit your VAT return via the Making Tax Digital functionality. This enables you to connect to HMRC and download your VAT obligations and subsequently submit your VAT return.

However I’ve found that sometimes even though the VAT return has been submitted to HMRC and the “VAT Return Status” changes to “Accepted” the “Status” of the VAT Return remains as “Open” and consequently the message “Your VAT Return is Overdue…” is displayed on the Home Page (depending on your role centre) and also in the “Additional Information” on the VAT Return Periods page.

In this post I’ll walkthrough how you can remove this message.

VAT Returns Period Page

As per the screen shot below I’m getting the message “Your VAT return is overdue since 07/08/23” in the “VAT Return Periods” page however the VAT Return Status is “Accepted”.

The period in question is 01/04/2023 (1st of April 2023) until the 30/06/2023. Therefore in order to remove this message I click “Get VAT Return Periods” and enter the same dates into the page as per below

The system then connects to HMRC to gather data on that range and although there are no new overdue VAT Return Periods in that date range it updates the status of any VAT returns within the date range.

You are then presented with the update box below

This message states “Retrieve VAT return periods successful. Including 0 new and 1 modified”.

This means although no new VAT Return Periods were received in the date range 1 was modified.

Now both the “VAT Return Status” and “Status” are closed and the message has gone ๐Ÿ™‚

Conclusion

This post explains how you can update both the “VAT Return Status” and “Status” of a submitted VAT return using the “Get VAT Return Periods” option.

If you have numerous VAT returns showing the same issue you can enter a large date range and have the system update all your VAT return statuses.

Thanks for reading!

Dynamics 365 Business Central – How to quickly find the VAT entries closed by a VAT Statement using the G/L Register page

Introduction

In this post I’ll walkthrough a method I use to quickly find all VAT entries that have been closed on a previous VAT statement using the G/L Registers page.

You can then export the entries to Excel and recalculate the submitted VAT return by summing each VAT Business and VAT Product posting group combination.

I use this technique if I’m investigating a VAT issue following the “Calculate and Post VAT Statement” routine and I want to see the detailed VAT entries that were closed.

G/L Register

The G/L Register page records an entry for every posting that is made in Business Central, including the posting that’s created when you run the “Calculate and Close VAT Statement” process. As a side note, It also happens to be one of my favourite pages in Business Central ๐Ÿ™‚

Therefore if you open the “G/L Register” page and then filter on “Source Code” equal to VATSTMT you get a list of all G/L registers that have been created when closing the VAT statement.

Now you can highlight the G/L Register that relates to the VAT Statement you want to view closed entries for and select “Process > VAT Entries”

This lists the “Settlement” VAT entries that were created when the “Calculate and Close VAT Statement” was ran.

Now take the Entry No’s shown in the filter and create a new filter using the same range but using the “Closed by Entry No” column

This will list all VAT entries closed by the settlement entries, which is effectively a reprint of the VAT statement ๐Ÿ™‚

You can now take this to Excel and continue your investigations.

Conclusion

This is just one technique you can use to get a list of the closed VAT entries however I find it the quickest and it also gives me an excuse to use the G/L Register page ๐Ÿ™‚

Thanks for reading!

Dynamics 365 Business Central – How long does the Free Trial of Business Central last?

Introduction

I always assumed the free trial of Business Central lasted 30 days, with a potential extension to 60 days (90 days if a partner relationship has been made), however if you dig into the details of the trial FAQ you’ll see this isn’t the case.

In this post I’ll go through the Microsoft FAQ documentation to highlight how every trial of Business Central will essentially last forever. (small caveat that I highlight below)

Microsoft Trial FAQ

When you create a trial of Business Central, the trial will effectively last forever.

This is explained in the Microsoft Trial FAQ here and below is a snippet from the FAQ explaining this.

This allows you free, unlimited access to experiment with and test all the amazing features of Business Central within the demo company, Cronus.

However, as soon as you create a new blank company the 30 day trial will begin as explained in the FAQ I referenced above and explained below.

I’ve also found that even if you do create a new company and activate the trial, its only that company that will no longer be accessible once the trial expires. You’ll still be able to log in and access the Cronus demo company.

The 30 day trial only seems to affect production

Finally on investigation it seems the 30 day trial limit is only initiated if you create a blank company in the Production environment of Business Central.

I tested this by creating a new company in the Production environment and selecting “Production – Setup Data Only” and the message of the trial period is displayed

Production Environment

However when I select the same option in the Sandbox environment the trial message doesn’t appear.

Sandbox Environment

Conclusion

In summary, as per Microsoft’s Trial FAQ, once the trial of Business Central is activated its available indefinitely. (If not left unused for 45 days)

Thanks for reading!