VAT refunds are lost on paperwork, not on entitlement

Exporters and businesses with substantial zero-rated sales can recover input VAT. In practice many claims stall, and almost never because the entitlement was in doubt. They stall because the file cannot show, document by document, that the input relates to the qualifying sale.

A complete claim file holds five things. A reconciliation from your ledger to the claim, so a reviewer can trace the figure without redoing your work. Purchase invoices in the company's own name, with a valid supplier VAT number. Evidence of the export or zero-rated sale, matched to the related purchases rather than filed separately. Bank evidence of payment to suppliers and receipt from customers. And a written explanation of any apportionment, where a purchase serves both taxable and exempt activity.

The avoidable rejection we see most is input credit claimed on invoices addressed to a related company, on the reasonable-sounding basis that the group paid for it. Entitlement follows the invoice, not the economics. An invoice in a director's personal name is not recoverable either, however genuine the expense. Fix the invoicing before you claim, not after.

The businesses whose refunds move fastest assemble the file as part of the monthly close rather than at claim time. Reconstructing twelve months of paperwork afterwards is where the real cost and delay sit, and it is where genuinely recoverable amounts get quietly written off because the evidence can no longer be found.

If a claim of yours has been pending longer than you expected, we can review the file and tell you plainly whether the problem is entitlement or evidence.