❌ Difference #5
Confusing Billing, Cash Receipts… and Available Funds

Many new business owners get the following mixed up:

• sales,
• turnover,
• cash flow,
• and profit.

And that’s understandable: no one has really explained it to them. However, this confusion can prove very costly, especially in the early years when every euro counts.

🧠 A handy reminder

💡VAT is a charge imposed by the government on your invoice. You collect it, yes, but only to pass it on later. It’s not a profit; it’s a temporary cash advance.

📅 VAT returns: why you need to deal with them regularly

Unlike what some of our colleagues still do, we require our clients to submit their VAT returns every quarter from their first year of business:

• ✅ This allows tax compliance to keep pace with the business,
• ✅ And avoids ending up with a massive, unexpected outlay at the end of the year.

❌ Filing VAT once a year often means realising too late that you have to pay back up to one-sixth of your available cash flow.

🔁 Monthly returns? Too restrictive at first. Once you’ve got into the routine, you can consider it.

🔄 The invoicing tool: an indispensable ally

For all non-retail businesses, we strongly recommend using a professional invoicing tool, as it allows you to:

• Easily move from quote to deposit, then to the final invoice,
• Track payments in real time via a link to your bank account,
• Automatically send reminders to customers who are late with payments,
• Generate a simple, easy-to-read dashboard (even without accounting skills).

And even if you already have your own tool: no worries.

We have developed our own Excel macros to convert your exports into an accounting sales journal ready to be imported into our software.

🏪 What about shops with a till?

💬 “My till generates an export, so that’s fine, isn’t it?”

Not quite. Contrary to popular belief:

• Cash registers do not generate ready-to-use accounting entries.
• And most firms still make do with posting just one entry per month, hoping that will suffice during an audit.

❗ Here, we’ve chosen to record transactions daily, as required by the tax authorities. We’ve therefore developed our own Excel tools to integrate daily export files from your till, whatever the model.

Why?

• Because if you fail to provide accounts, the tax authorities are authorised to calculate your turnover themselves.

• And when they do… they don’t mess about: they count the number of napkins, water consumption, square metres, stock levels… and their estimates are always to your disadvantage.

🧾 Simply put, keeping meticulous daily accounts protects you.