A bank line is not a VAT invoice. Attach the bill.
What UK businesses need to retain to support input-VAT claims, why a 100% attachment target is a sensible operating control, and where Dext and Numbers Game solve different parts of the job.
For input VAT, the document is the evidence.
A UK VAT return is not supported by a bank feed alone. HMRC requires businesses to keep records of what they buy and sell, including invoices received, and it says you cannot reclaim VAT using an invalid invoice, a pro-forma invoice, a statement or a delivery note. For a normal input-tax claim, the evidence is a valid VAT invoice from the supplier.
The useful operating rule is simple: every bill or receipt that supports a purchase should be attached to the transaction or bill record before the VAT return is reviewed. It makes the evidence findable, keeps the audit trail with the ledger, and turns a last-minute document chase into an exception list.
That is deliberately stricter than saying every bank transaction needs both a receipt and a bill. It does not. A single valid VAT invoice can be the evidence. A card receipt may prove payment, but it does not automatically prove the VAT treatment. The question is whether the business holds the right source document for the claim it is making.
What HMRC actually expects you to keep.
- Keep purchase invoices. HMRC says VAT-registered businesses must keep all purchase invoices for items they buy, in original or electronic form.
- Use a valid VAT invoice for the normal claim. HMRC’s input-tax guidance says a claim needs appropriate documentary evidence. A full VAT invoice is the standard evidence, while a less-detailed VAT invoice can be used where the tax-inclusive value is £250 or less.
- Do not treat the bank line as the evidence. A bank or card transaction can corroborate payment, but HMRC says an invalid invoice, statement, delivery note or pro-forma invoice cannot itself support the reclaim.
- Keep the trail retrievable. HMRC’s VAT Notice 700 says invoices must be kept so they can be easily presented on request. That is why attaching the file to the ledger entry matters.
- Escalate missing evidence. HMRC can consider alternative evidence in exceptional cases, but it does not replace the normal requirement to hold a compliant VAT invoice. Ask the supplier for the invoice instead of normalising a gap.
This is general information, not VAT advice. Reverse charge, imports, partial exemption, flat-rate treatment and sector-specific rules can change the right answer. Your accountant should decide the treatment before a return is filed.
VAT evidence fails in the handoff, not in the law.
Most missing documents are not disputed purchases. They are bills left in a supplier inbox, receipts still on a phone, or PDFs saved somewhere that is not the transaction being reviewed. The bookkeeping team then has to rebuild the chain: find the line, identify the supplier, ask for the document, confirm the VAT, and decide whether to hold the claim.
A 100% attachment target changes the question. Instead of asking at quarter end whether the VAT return has enough evidence, the firm asks continuously: which transactions have no supporting document, and who owns the chase? The ledger stops being a list of coded lines and becomes a reviewable file.
The time saving is in the bill creation, not just OCR.
“I think there is also something to be packaged around the uploading of bills, we need 100% of bills attached here to claim VAT and as soon as Michiel added that functionality I could not believe how fast NG was able to upload and create all these bills honestly it’s a game changer but right now it’s a bookkeeping task and not something I personally do but even with all these invoice readers like Dext it’s no way near as fast as this.”
— Niralee, fractional CFO and Numbers Game customer
The point is not that no one should use an invoice reader. The point is to measure the whole path. A document is only useful when it is stored against the right bill or transaction, has the evidence needed for VAT review, and has reached the person who can approve the accounting treatment.
Dext is a document-capture product. Numbers Game is the bill-creation workflow.
Dext is built for collecting bills, receipts and sales documents. Its costs workflow lets users add documents from a computer, email address, mobile app and supplier connections, then extract key fields for review and publish to connected accounting software. It is a good fit when the core problem is gathering a high volume of source documents into a dedicated capture inbox.
Numbers Game takes a different route for firms that want the bill to be created from the uploaded document inside the accounting workflow. Upload the bill, create the bill record with the source evidence attached, then review the proposed coding and VAT treatment before it becomes part of the books. The intended outcome is not another document inbox. It is a clean bill record, with its evidence, ready for the bookkeeper’s review.
| Question | Dext | Numbers Game |
|---|---|---|
| What it starts with | A document-capture inbox for bills, receipts and sales documents | A bill-creation workflow inside the accounting work |
| Best at | Collecting source documents through multiple intake channels | Turning an uploaded supplier bill into a bill record with the source attached |
| What the team reviews | Extracted fields, category and publish settings | The proposed bill, evidence, coding and VAT treatment in the accounting workflow |
| Attachment control | Images can publish to the accounting system when image sharing or publishing is enabled for that connection | The workflow is designed around keeping the uploaded source document with the bill record |
| The practical choice | Choose it when dedicated document intake is the missing layer | Choose it when the accounting team wants upload-to-bill creation and review in one workflow |
This is not a claim that one product replaces every other product. A firm may keep Dext as its intake layer and still use Numbers Game for ledger work. The comparison matters because OCR is not the whole job. A fast reader that leaves the bill, evidence and review in separate places still leaves someone to join them back together.
Make missing evidence an exception, not a scavenger hunt.
1. Capture
Send every supplier bill and purchase receipt into the same controlled workflow. Do not rely on a bookkeeper finding it later in an individual inbox.
2. Attach
Attach the source document to the bill or transaction before it is marked ready for VAT review. Keep a separate list for documents that genuinely cannot be obtained.
3. Review
Before filing, review exceptions: missing VAT invoices, supplier VAT numbers, duplicate documents, personal spend, reverse-charge items and anything with an unclear treatment.
The target is not bureaucratic perfection. It is a VAT return where every claim can be traced from the return to the ledger entry to the document without a new search project.
See every bill before the VAT return.
Bring a real supplier-bill workflow. We will show you how Numbers Game can turn upload, evidence and review into one bookkeeping step.