VAT Health Check

A structured review of your whole VAT position — treatments, schemes, processes and past returns — done by ex-HMRC specialists before HMRC does its own version uninvited.

Speak to a Specialist Call 020 8567 3451

VAT errors are symmetrical: businesses undercharge and overclaim, but they also overpay for years — missing recovery on costs, sitting on the wrong scheme, standard-rating supplies that qualify for relief. Both directions stay invisible because returns are filed by routine: the same treatments, period after period, correct or not.

A VAT health check breaks the routine deliberately. We examine how your VAT actually works — what you charge, what you recover, how the numbers reach the return — find the errors in both directions, and leave you with a clear report: what to correct, what to reclaim, and what to change so the next HMRC visit is boring.

What the Health Check Covers

The review works through the areas where VAT goes wrong in practice: the rating of your supplies, including the reduced-rate and zero-rate reliefs businesses miss; input tax recovery and the evidence behind it; partial exemption methods that have drifted from the business's real activity; property transactions and options to tax; international supplies and the post-Brexit rules for goods and services; scheme suitability — flat rate, cash accounting, margin schemes; and the process itself, from source records to the MTD filing.

Errors Found on Your Terms, Not HMRC's

The same error costs very different amounts depending on who finds it. Discovered in a health check, it is corrected on the next return or through an unprompted disclosure at minimal or no penalty; discovered in an HMRC compliance visit, it arrives with assessments covering four years, penalties graded by behaviour, and interest. The health check is, bluntly, arbitrage between those two prices — and several of the people running it used to conduct the visits.

Money Back: the Overpayment Side

Reviews regularly recover as much as they protect: input tax never claimed on overheads and imports, reliefs unclaimed on qualifying supplies, and errors in HMRC's favour correctable for up to four years. Where we find overpayments we prepare the claims, with the documentation to support them — VAT recovery is a dedicated service of ours, and the health check is how such claims usually start.

The Report and What Follows

You receive a findings report in plain terms: errors quantified with the correction route for each, risks graded by likelihood of HMRC challenge, reclaim opportunities with their evidence requirements, and process fixes ranked by effort against exposure. Implementation is yours or ours — corrections, disclosures and claims can be handed straight to our VAT compliance team, and complex areas to the relevant specialists: partial exemption, property, international.

What You Get With Acumon

Full review of output VAT treatments, including missed reliefs
Input tax recovery and evidence tested — including what you never claimed
Partial exemption method checked against the business's actual activity
Property, option-to-tax and international supply positions reviewed
Scheme suitability assessed: flat rate, cash accounting, margin schemes
Errors quantified with the lowest-cost correction route for each
Overpayment reclaims prepared, going back up to four years
Fixed scope and fee, agreed before the review starts

Why Acumon for VAT Health Check?

Many of Acumon's VAT specialists previously worked for HMRC
All 90 professionals are based in the UK
Dedicated VAT recovery, partial exemption, property and international VAT specialists in-house
Findings handed to correction, disclosure or reclaim with no second onboarding

Get a Fixed-Fee Quote

Tell us what you need and we'll come back within one business day with a clear scope and a fixed price — no hourly-rate surprises. Call 020 8567 3451 or use the form and we'll be in touch.

Common Questions

Frequently Asked Questions

When is a VAT health check most worthwhile?

At the pressure points: before an announced HMRC visit, ahead of a sale or due diligence, after rapid growth or a new activity (property, exports, digital services), on inheriting the finance function, or simply when nobody has looked at the VAT logic since registration. As routine hygiene, every few years earns its keep — VAT rules move constantly, and businesses change faster than their VAT treatments do.

What if the review finds serious errors?

Then you have found them first, which is the entire point. Small errors are corrected on the next return within HMRC's limits; larger ones go through a formal disclosure, which we prepare and frame — unprompted disclosure attracts the lowest penalty range, often nil for careless errors disclosed well. What we never do is note a problem and leave it in a drawer: every finding comes with its correction route and our recommendation.

How disruptive is the review for our finance team?

Modest. We work from records you already have — returns, VAT accounts, sales and purchase data, a sample of invoices — plus a small number of structured conversations about how supplies are made and processed. Most of the analysis happens on our side. A typical single-entity review completes within two to three weeks elapsed, with your team's involvement measured in hours.

Is this the same as an HMRC VAT inspection?

Same territory, opposite incentives. An HMRC visit looks for underdeclared VAT; it will not volunteer what you overpaid. Our review looks both ways — several of the team conducted HMRC visits earlier in their careers, so the check covers what an inspector would test, plus the recovery side an inspector never mentions. Businesses that health-check periodically tend to find real inspections short and uneventful, which is the intended effect.

Get in Touch

Ready to Sort Your VAT Health Check?

Tell us what you need. Within one business day, a qualified accountant will be in touch to talk it through and give you a clear, fixed-fee quote — no obligation.

Call us020 8567 3451

WhatsAppMessage us any time

Email[email protected]

Visit us1-2 Craven Road, Ealing, London, W5 2UA

Speak to a Specialist

Fill this in and we'll come back to you within one business day.