Missing invoice - claim anyway?

[Roz]

Am I right in thinking that HMRC are only asking for a handful of invoices now? I can’t find the invoice for our supply only ASHP which is pretty annoying as the VAT is like £500, and the company say that they’ve been taken over by another company so have a new computer system and apparently can’t find the invoice without the ticket number (?), so I’m stuck with it. Is it worth just putting it on the spreadsheet anyway and hoping that HMRC don’t ask for that invoice? It’s up there near the top of our VAT amounts we are reclaiming.

Anyone any experience with what happens if they ask for the single item we don’t have an invoice for? 

Edited March 20 by Roz

[JamesP]

They were very thorough with my claim a couple of years ago.

They found one invoice out of nearly 500 with only half the vat number visible and asked me to resend a copy.

I would mock up an invoice if you could find their business details and VAT number.

Hassle them again.

Edited March 20 by JamesP

[Roz]

Thanks James. I’ve got an invoice-looking quote so guess I could try to send that if HMRC decide that’s one of the ones they want to look at! (I’m under the impression that they’ve changed it a bit so they don’t make you send every single invoice but I could be wrong)

[nod]

Under the previous system You would have had to right it off 

I haven’t yet used the new system But you could jeopardize your whole claim 

Claiming for something that you can’t back up 

 

[shuff27]

  On 20/03/2025 at 14:50, Roz said:

Thanks James. I’ve got an invoice-looking quote so guess I could try to send that if HMRC decide that’s one of the ones they want to look at! (I’m under the impression that they’ve changed it a bit so they don’t make you send every single invoice but I could be wrong)

Expand  

This would most likely be rejected.  I was missing a final invoice for rainwater goods I'd paid for over the phone  - I sent the proforma invoice & proof of credit card payment to HMRC but they rejected it.  Fortunately I was eventually able to get a proper final invoice from the supplier & HMRC made an extra reclaim payment to me a few weeks after the original one.

[kandgmitchell]

We're going through our claim at the moment. We have just had their response and they raised a list of 15 invoices to be copied to them, they just happen to be the highest vat invoices in size order downwards. They also want to see proof of payment for any invoice we listed that wasn't in our name ( so all the B&Q ones basically). Lot of scanning to do......

[Roz]

I think i am going to leave it out, I tried calling the company again and they insist they don’t keep old invoices, and the quotation actually doesn’t look as much like an invoice as i remembered. It’s frustrating as it’s one of our largest VAT amounts, and I was pretty good at making sure I had all my invoices on email so it’s a shame one of the larger ones is one I made a mistake on, but it is what it is! 

[Adam2]

@Roz My experience from the new system was very positive. I had a pro-forma with no VAT number from a tile company (that went bust) for 9K and they accepted this, I did provide a justification and provided their VAT number that I found via the internet. Maybe I was lucky but am pleased I did this. If you are being genuine and have some evidence - inc proof of payment if needed (I was not asked for this) then I would be surprised (based solely on my experience) if that would jepardize the whole submission