As of 13 August 2026, AI can only partly create a VAT records procedure for your UK business.

What to actually do

1. Hand it to a person

   The route this page recommends

   Someone with a licence or accountable authority has to sign this before it counts.

2. Use a tool built for this

   Second choice

3. Do it yourself

   The distant third

   A chat interface, chat-fluent skill, and roughly 1 hour until you can act on the result.

   How to actually do it

   1. Open the current VAT record-keeping guidance on GOV.UK and note the business's VAT scheme, registration details and any requirements that clearly apply.
   2. Gather sample sales invoices, purchase invoices, credit notes, expense receipts, payment records, import or export documents and the latest VAT reports, removing unnecessary personal data.
   3. Write down the accounting software, sales channels, payment systems, storage locations, backup arrangements, staff roles and approval checks used by the business.
   4. Paste those facts into the prompt and ask the chatbot to produce the procedure, separating confirmed facts from assumptions and questions for an accountant or tax adviser.
   5. Compare every requirement and any stated retention or transaction treatment against the current GOV.UK guidance and mark anything that cannot be confirmed from that source.
   6. Send the marked questions and draft procedure to your accountant or tax adviser, then update the approved version, assign an owner and test the checklist against one recent sales transaction and one recent purchase.

   Prompt

   Create a practical VAT records procedure for this UK business. Treat it as an internal SOP, not as a VAT return or a tax opinion.
   
   Business details:
   - Business type and main activities: [insert]
   - VAT registration status and effective date: [insert]
   - VAT scheme: [insert, or say unknown]
   - Accounting and invoicing software: [insert]
   - Payment systems and sales channels: [insert]
   - Purchase and expense systems: [insert]
   - Number of people involved and their roles: [insert]
   - Cross-border sales, imports, exports, reverse charge, property, assets or other unusual transactions: [insert, or say none known]
   - Current document storage and backup arrangements: [insert]
   - Current review and approval process: [insert]
   
   Write the procedure with these sections:
   1. Purpose and scope
   2. Roles and responsibilities
   3. Records to create and retain for sales, purchases, expenses, credit notes, payments and adjustments
   4. Required information for invoices and supporting evidence
   5. How staff should capture, name, store and back up records
   6. How records should flow from source documents into the accounting system and VAT reports
   7. Reconciliation and review checks before a VAT return is submitted
   8. Corrections, missing documents, duplicate entries and suspected errors
   9. How to handle unusual or uncertain transactions
   10. Review frequency, ownership and version control
   11. A staff checklist and an evidence checklist
   
   Use plain UK English and make each step operational. Distinguish clearly between facts supplied by me, general process recommendations and points that need confirmation. Do not invent VAT rates, deadlines, retention periods, legal conclusions or transaction treatment. Where a rule or treatment is uncertain, write a specific question for an accountant or tax adviser and tell me to check the current guidance on GOV.UK. Include a short implementation checklist and a list of assumptions at the end. This is not professional advice.

   Open it prefilled in ChatGPT or Claude, or copy it into Gemini, which takes no prefill link.