Set up your VAT periods

BusyBee Hub prepares a VAT return for every VAT period once it knows how HMRC has split your year.

1. Go to Settings → VAT and turn on VAT registered.
2. Enter your VAT number and registration date.
3. Choose your scheme, Standard or Flat rate (with your sector percentage), and tick Cash accounting scheme if HMRC approved you for it.
4. Under VAT periods, pick Quarterly or Monthly. For quarterly returns, choose the months your quarters end in: HMRC set this when you registered and it's on your VAT registration certificate and in your HMRC online account.
5. If your first VAT period didn't start on your registration date, set First VAT period starts on.

Save, then open Tax → VAT. You'll see one row per period, with the date each return is due, one calendar month and 7 days after the period ends, so a quarter ending 30 June is due by 7 August.

Once you connect BusyBee Hub to HMRC for VAT, the periods and references HMRC holds replace the ones you set here.

Flat Rate Scheme: the first-year 1% discount

If you registered for VAT on time, HMRC gives Flat Rate Scheme businesses a 1% discount off their sector percentage for the first year — until the day before your first anniversary of becoming VAT registered (VAT Notice 733 §4.7). Enter your sector percentage as normal and leave I registered for VAT on time (first-year 1% discount applies) switched on; BusyBee Hub applies the 1% discount automatically up to your anniversary, then the full sector percentage after it — splitting a return that straddles the anniversary between the two rates. If you registered 12 months or more late, HMRC doesn't give you the discount at all — turn the toggle off.

The VAT return shows the effective percentage(s) actually used for each period, so you can see when the discount applied.