Andrew Needham looks at self-billing for VAT purposes and the advantages it can have for businesses.
Self-billing is an arrangement between a supplier and a customer, whereby the customer produces the sales invoice on behalf of the supplier; this can have advantages for both parties.
Both the customer and supplier must be VAT registered.â¯Rather than the supplier issuing a tax invoice in the normal way, the customer raises a self-billing document. The customer prepares the supplier’s invoice and forwards a copy to the supplier along with the payment.
If a business wants to put a self-billing arrangement in place, it does not have to tell HMRC or get approval from them, but it does have to get its supplier to agree to the arrangement and meet certain conditions. A self-billing agreement will usually last for 12 months or the length of the contract, after which the
