Accountants and agents

Agent features are not yet switched on. The screens described below exist in VATflow and have been tested against HMRC’s sandbox, but they stay hidden until agent go-live. Until then an accountant can still use VATflow by signing in to the client business’s own VATflow account with the client’s permission and filing through the business’s own HMRC connection. This page will be updated on the day the features go live.

• An HMRC agent services account for the practice: get an agent services account (opens GOV.UK).
• Each client’s authorisation, given to HMRC by the client: authorise an agent (opens GOV.UK). VATflow checks this authorisation with HMRC and will not file for a client HMRC does not show as authorised.
• Your own VATflow account with an authenticator app, as for any user.

A practice connects once, with its agent services account, under Practice. It then adds each client by VAT registration number and VAT registration date; VATflow confirms the authorisation with HMRC and marks the client confirmed or pending. Pending clients can be re-checked with Verify once the authorisation is in place.

Within a company, people have one of three roles:

• Owner: the business itself. Connects HMRC, prepares and submits returns, manages members, pays HMRC.
• Admin: can prepare and submit for the company but not remove the owner.
• Agent: a practice authorised by HMRC for that client. Files under the practice’s agent authorisation; the receipt records that the return was filed by the agent.

• Can: see the clients they are authorised for, switch between them, read obligations and liabilities, prepare and submit returns, download receipts and exports.
• Cannot: see a client’s other companies, change the client’s own HMRC connection, change the client’s billing, or act for a client HMRC has not authorised them for.
• The business owner keeps their own VATflow account and sees their own company only; a return filed by the practice appears in the owner’s history, marked as filed by their agent.
• Each side keeps its own HMRC authorisation. Removing a client in VATflow does not cancel the HMRC authorisation; that is done with HMRC.

A practice pays for the client companies it is authorised and actively filing for, on the same per-company graduated rate as businesses, and never for a client it has stopped acting for. See Pricing, billing and cancellation. Billing is not yet switched on either; see that page for what applies during launch.