Record a GST/HST return you filed somewhere else

Most books arrive at TALISK_HQ with returns already filed somewhere else: QuickBooks, Xero, a spreadsheet, your accountant's software. Record each one and TALISK_HQ clears the GST/HST accounts that return settled, without changing anything in your books.

Until you do, your balance sheet still carries GST you collected and input tax credits you claimed on returns that were filed and paid months ago.

Record the return

1. Go to Ledger › Reports › Tax › Tax Summary.
2. Set the period to the one the return covers, either from the Filing period list or the Filing periods tab in the period picker beside it.
3. In the filing card at the bottom of the page, click Filed elsewhere. It sits beside Mark as Filed, which is the other door: use that one only when you are filing this period from TALISK_HQ.
4. Copy the figures off the return you are holding, then click Record this filing.

TALISK_HQ confirms with Filing recorded. Your books are unchanged.

Record several past returns in one pass

A book moving to TALISK_HQ usually has a year or more of returns behind it, and there is no need to open the form once per period.

1. Go to Ledger › Reports › Tax › Filing History and click Record past returns. The button appears when TALISK_HQ finds GST/HST periods from the last four years with no filing recorded.
2. Each row is one of your filing periods, oldest first. Type the figures off each return, using the same lines as the single form (101, 103, 104, 106, 107, 110 and the optional 109 check), plus the date filed and the confirmation number. Leave a row blank to skip that period.
3. Click the record button at the bottom. It counts the rows you filled in: Record 1 return for one, Record 3 returns for three, and so on.

TALISK_HQ records them oldest first, whatever order you fill them in, because a return can carry late claims from the one before it. A pass is recorded all together or not at all: if one return needs fixing, nothing is recorded, that row says why in red, and everything you typed stays where it is. Fix the row and record again.

Some periods cannot be recorded in a pass, and the row says which:

• A period your books already cleared by hand, after it ended. If a journal entry dated after the period moved its GST/HST out of the collected and input tax credit accounts, recording the return would clear the same tax a second time. Delete that journal entry first (unlock the period if it is locked), then record the return. Don't reverse it with a new entry instead: a reversal dated in a later period moves the tax into that period. An entry dated on the period's own last day is fine and does not block anything.
• A monthly period whose return may have been recorded by hand on its due date. An entry dated on the last day of the next month clears GST/HST on the day the earlier return was due, so it can belong to either month. When its amounts match only one month's books, TALISK_HQ knows which. When they don't, the row asks you to check which return the entry records: if it is that period's, delete it first; if it isn't, record the return from the Tax Summary.
• A period a later return may already have swept is not offered at all. When a return is recorded after a period that has none, it can carry that period's tax forward as late claims, so recording the earlier period now could clear that tax twice. TALISK_HQ offers such a period only when no return recorded after it could have carried its tax: a Quick Method return never does, and neither does one that posted no entry because its own period had no GST/HST. Otherwise your books cannot always show which later return carried what, especially once documents are added to a period after it was filed, and TALISK_HQ will not guess when a wrong guess clears tax twice. Ask your accountant how it was reported, and record that return from the Tax Summary once they have confirmed it.
• Skipping a period with activity between two you are recording. The later return would carry the skipped period's tax into its entry as late claims, so the pass refuses. Add the skipped return to the pass.
• Recording an older return while a later one is already recorded and a period with activity sits unrecorded between them. Late claims reach back to your earliest recorded return, so the next return you file would report that period's tax again. Add that period's return to the pass.
• Locked books. Each return's entry is dated at the end of its own period, so a lock through that date refuses it. Unlock on Ledger › Accounting › Period Lock, record the returns, then lock again.

Tick Lock the books through the end of the newest period you record to lock once the pass has landed; it is ticked by default. At most 16 returns fit in one pass. Start next to a return that is already recorded and work outwards from it; if none is recorded yet, start with the oldest.

The periods come from the filing frequency and fiscal year end in Ledger › Setup. If either changed in the last four years, your earlier returns will not line up with these rows. Record those one at a time from the Tax Summary, where the period picker takes any dates.

When your books show a return TALISK_HQ has no record of

Books Health raises a card when entries in your books look like a return was filed but no filing is recorded for that period: a GST/HST remittance or payment posted for a period that is not marked filed, or a journal entry that clears the collected and input tax credit accounts together, including one that pays the balance from a bank account in the same entry. It waits until that return's due date has passed, so it never contradicts the filing deadline reminder. Record past returns on the card opens the pass above.

The card is urgent when a return filed elsewhere comes after your last recorded filing. Until it is recorded, TALISK_HQ treats that tax as never reported, so the next return you file from TALISK_HQ would carry it forward as late claims and report it a second time. Record it before you file again.

When a later recorded return has probably already carried a period's tax, or TALISK_HQ cannot tell whether it did, the card says so and opens Filing History instead of offering to record the period.

A hand entry that only records a refund or a payment, or that moves tax between the two accounts to correct a mistake, does not raise the card: those settle or fix a return rather than record one. Neither does an adjusting entry that touches the tax accounts alongside others: the card only reads an entry that clears GST collected and input tax credits into GST/HST payable or straight to a bank account, the way a return does.

What to type

The fields carry the CRA's own line numbers, so each one is a box on the return in front of you:

• Line 101 — Total sales and other revenue
• Line 103 — GST/HST collected or collectible
• Line 104 — Adjustments to be added
• Line 106 — Input tax credits (ITCs)
• Line 107 — Adjustments to be deducted
• Line 110 — Instalments and other payments

Lines 101, 103 and 106 are on every return, so fill in all three. A blank is a dropped field, not a nil line: where the return shows nothing, enter 0.

Line 109 — Net tax, as printed on the return is optional, and it is a check rather than a figure. TALISK_HQ works net tax out from the lines above. Type 109 as well and it confirms the two agree before recording anything, which is free insurance against a slip on a record you cannot edit later.

Tick This return also covered QST (Revenu Québec) for the combined Quebec filing, then fill in QST collected and QST input tax refunds (ITRs).

Date filed (optional), Confirmation number (optional) and Notes (optional) are the details Filing History shows you afterwards. The filing date has to fall between the end of the period and today.

The box that locks your books through the period end is ticked by default, so a return that has gone to the authority cannot quietly change behind it. Untick it if you still have work to post into that period, and lock it later on Ledger › Accounting › Period Lock.

TALISK_HQ records the return, it does not file one

This door is for a return that has already gone to the authority. TALISK_HQ produces the figures and the worksheet; you or your accountant file. Nothing here submits anything to anyone.

It also never restates your books. What you type is kept as the record of what you filed and is used for nothing else, so your ledger carries on saying what your documents say. The only entry TALISK_HQ posts is the same remittance that Mark as Filed posts, worked out from your own ledger rather than from anything on the form.

The entry is dated at the end of the period, not today

Record a March to May return in September and the GST accounts clear as at 31 May, because that is the period the return settled. Dating it today would leave your balance sheet carrying already remitted GST on every date in between, which is the problem this feature exists to fix. When you filed is kept separately, in Date filed (optional).

This is the one thing to watch if your books are locked. A lock through the end of that period refuses the backdated entry and tells you so, rather than quietly posting it somewhere else. Unlock on Ledger › Accounting › Period Lock, record the return, then lock again.

Your books will not match the return, and that is normal

Two systems rarely split a period the same way. A sale lands a day either side of the quarter end; the other system claimed an input tax credit on the next return instead of this one. Both sets of numbers can be right, and neither is an error.

So TALISK_HQ measures the difference once, as you record the filing, and keeps it. Your books carry on moving and the return never will, so a comparison worked out fresh every day would answer a different question every day.

Open Ledger › Reports › Tax › Filing History. The period reads Filed elsewhere rather than Filed, and its row carries a Compare to my books button. That opens a panel with four columns: Line, Your books, As filed and Difference. The difference is the return less your books, so a plus means the return reported more than your ledger does. Nothing in it is styled as a problem, because it is not one, and opening it changes nothing.

On the Tax Summary the same period shows the usual green Filed banner, and underneath the worksheet a note saying these are the figures from the return you filed elsewhere, that your books are unchanged, and where to compare them.

The comparison has three answers, not two

• Your books agree with the return you filed, line for line. They match.
• A table of lines. They differ, and this is by exactly how much.
• Your books were not compared against this return. TALISK_HQ could not work out its own worksheet at the moment you recorded the filing, so there is no comparison to show. That is not the same as agreement, and the panel says underneath why it could not look.

A period with nothing usable stored reads No comparison between your books and this return was recorded. for the same reason: no answer rather than a clean one.

One record per period, and it is frozen

A period can be recorded once. The figures freeze the moment you press Record this filing, exactly as they do when you mark a period filed from TALISK_HQ, and a second attempt is refused. Check the numbers before you record, which is what line 109 is for.

Three more refusals, all deliberate:

• A period already marked filed. Its filing is recorded already. If TALISK_HQ holds no copy of the figures that return reported, use Record the figures you filed on that period's Tax Summary instead: it keeps the figures and posts nothing, so whatever that period's filing posted, or did not post, stays exactly as it is. See "Your books changed after you filed".
• A period that has not ended yet. It cannot already have been filed, and Mark as Filed refuses it for the same reason.
• A period that is not GST/HST. QST is remitted on the same return, so record the GST/HST period covering those dates. PST is reported on the tax worksheet rather than filed here.

The money is a separate step

This records the return, not the payment. If you paid the balance or received a refund, record that on its own: Record payment on the period's row in Filing History, Record payment / refund on the Tax Summary banner, or the Tax refund action on the bank line the deposit arrived on.