Although it’s still summer, the end of the year is right around the corner. And, for many businesses, that means getting  receipts in order, balancing books, and reporting income to the government. For many business owners, this is a painstaking process involving paper receipts and spreadsheets that haven’t been updated in months.

But a new HMRC rule wants to kill off spreadsheets and annual tax returns, replacing them with digital records that get submitted directly from your software on a regular basis. Dubbed “Making Tax Digital,” many businesses are already likely wrangling with this new rule, while others will not have to directly deal with it until later. The new rule went into effect in April of this year for businesses making more than £50,000. That threshold drops to £30,000 in 2027, then £20,000 in 2028.

The good news is that there’s a solution to make reporting—and your life—a lot easier. That is, integrating your EPOS system with your accounting software.

What EPOS-Accounting Integration Actually Does

The basic idea is that instead of manually tallying up the day’s sales, your EPOS does it for you and sends the results straight to your accounting software.

Every day, your EPOS generates an invoice covering everything sold the day before (or on demand, whenever you need it). That invoice can be broken down by SKU, department, or group, depending on how granular you want your reporting to be. It also handles the payment side, automatically matching the invoice against the cash and card payments taken during the same time period.

That means no manual data entry, no reconciling till rolls against spreadsheets, and no chasing numbers that don’t add up. Everything’s pulled through automatically and ready to go, so all you have to do is review it for accuracy (even computers make mistakes) and hit send on your report.

Why It’s Worth Getting Granular

When you set up the integration, you’ll need to choose how your sales data gets broken down: by SKU, department, or group. SKU is the most detailed, with every individual product, tracked separately. Department mirrors your till categories (think draft beer, spirits, wine). Group is the broadest rollup; for a pub, that might just be “wet” versus “dry” sales.

Most businesses instinctively reach for SKU-level detail. It’s the most useful for granular reporting, but it also generates a lot of invoice lines, so it’s worth thinking through whether you actually need that level of detail, or whether department or group gets you what you need with less overhead.

But you need to consider VAT reporting when choosing your level of granularity. While many hospitality businesses take the easy route and report everything at a flat 20 percent, that’s not actually accurate. A glass of tap water, for instance, is zero-rated. Lump it in with your other sales and you’re overpaying VAT on something that shouldn’t be taxed at all.

By integrating at SKU or department level, with the correct VAT rate applied to each product automatically, you’ll only report—and pay—exactly what you owe.

Setting Yourself Up for Success

Before you get started on the integration, you’ll need a cloud-based accounting platform, as integration doesn’t work with on-premise software (software running on your own hard drive). The three most common options are Xero, QuickBooks, and Sage (the online version only).

You’ll then need to make sure you have the right fields configured in your accounting software to receive data from your EPOS; on the EPOS side, your SKUs, departments, and groups need to be set up to match.

Once that’s in place, the actual setup is refreshingly painless. Log into your accounting software directly from your EPOS. From there, a guided wizard walks you through matching up your EPOS items with the right categories in your accounting software. Before anything goes live, you get a chance to review it. Check the mapping, check the outputs, make sure the numbers look right. Nothing’s locked in until you’re happy with it.

Once it is, you’re done! daily invoices generate automatically from then on, with everything pulled through and ready to go.

Why Integration Pays Off

It’s a good idea to integrate your EPOS with your accounting software to be in compliance, but you’ll also find it saves time, money, and headaches. Less manual reconciliation, less wrangling till rolls and spreadsheets. You’ll be able to ensure that your VAT is reported correctly so that you’re not leaving money on the table.

And when Making Tax Digital does eventually catch up with your business, your reporting will already be built, tested, and running exactly the way you want it.

Ready to set it up? Talk with one of our EPOS experts to discuss how you can quickly get into compliance with your EPOS system.