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Hi Alex,
Wasn't sure if you are all sorted, but thought I'd reply anyway. I can see from one of the posts the business has been trading for a couple of years, but will this be the first year on QuickBooks? I'm not sure why you are using opening balances?
If it is simply because the suppliers were missing from the accounts at the year-end, then first of all I would simply enter the missing invoices using the year end date or actual invoice date. (personally I would never use "opening balances" on any type of account) As the business is operating VAT on a cash basis it is important to enter customer invocies and supplier bills as they were unpaid at the year-end, and hence the VAT was not paid. If amounts have been paid since the year end, leaving "credit balances", it is important the credits are off-set against the invoices.
When VAT is calculated on a cash basis the figure per the return will always differ to the final accounts unless all debtors and creditors balances have been paid up. Final accounts are always prepared on a accrual basis and the usual preferred settings for QuickBooks is also accrual. If you run the trial balance report on QuickBooks you can choose to "modify" the report and change the settings to "cash" which you can help as an aid to ensure your VAT returns are correct. You cannot however always rely on this if the client has historically been in "a mess" and you may need to do a lot more checking and reconciling. Depending on the version of QuickBooks you are using, once VAT is filed the VAT figure appears as an unpaid balance within accounts payable (trade creditors). So sometimes it may appear at first glance that you have large differences between the balance sheet on QuickBooks to figures on statutory accounts (VAT is too low and creditors too high). This sort of difference is purley cosmetic and doesn't affect profits etc, the liabilty is just appearing in a different place.
If you are trying to get the balance sheet to agree to the accounts as at the year end, enter the missing invoices first, and then work out the differences between your balance sheet and that of the final accounts and enter journals to get everything to agree. If in doubt talk to your client's accountant, who should really have prepared the closing balance adjustments for you.
I hope some of the above makes some sense. I could go on and type pages and pages. Without knowing exaclty what you are trying to achieve it is a little tricky. If you get really stuck please drop me an e-mail via my web-site ashbeetsonbookkeeping.
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