When the prior reports were wrong then it is imperative Manger corrects the error. So this is exactly what should happen. To explain:
Tax reporting requirements are written in term of details of specific contractual relation between supplier and customer, products and services a business actually supplies as part of its business activity, acquisition made for specific use in a business to product taxable supplies, and retention of a common tax invoice between suppler and customer. For any giving jurisdiction and transaction between two entities these taxation requirements define who is the customer and who is the supplier, there is no flexibility. The assignment does not depend on which software package is used or if a business’s book keeper chooses to enter a transaction via the software packages’ cash sale/purchase mechanism or via a software package’s invoice.
An example of it’s significance is in Australia “G1 Total sales” is reported. The recent Jobkeeper subsidy for COVID is based on this figure. Jobkeeper provides a government subsidy of $19,500 per employee & one owner as well as a cash flow boost of between $20,000 and $100,000. These payments are not retrospectively claimable after the cut off dates. In addition in Australia GST on sales, and GST on purchases are separately submitted to the tax office which the business owner must verify are accurate, the tax office then calculates the net GST owing.
If you
- do not use cash transactions for barter / counter trade / Recipient-created tax invoices
- do not use cash transactions for refunds, returns, discounts, or other negative line items
Then the debit/credit to payments and receipts changes will make no difference to you.
If you only do one of the above then some versions will result in erroneous submissions to your tax office. For example
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Manager versions v20.7.30 - V20.8.66 produces correct VAT/GST submissions if you sometimes use cash transactions for refunds, returns, discounts, or other negative line items but never use cash transactions for barter / counter trade / Recipient-created tax invoices
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Manager versions older than about v20.7.30 produces correct VAT submissions if you sometimes use cash transactions for barter / counter trade / Recipient-created tax invoices but never use cash transactions for refunds, returns, discounts, or other negative line items
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If you sometime do both of the above all older version of Manager produce erroneous VAT/GST tax returns
The important thing to realize here is Manager producing the old VAT/GST reports does not make it right. You keeping old versions of the data file and program does not make them right either. The most it does is provide evidence to your tax department that it was on honest mistake, you tried to submit accurate data.
Now business owners have been alerted to the fact some of their old submissions were erroneous, corrective action maybe required depending or specific jurisdictions requirement to report errors when recognized.
A relatively easy way to find out it this may effect a business is to load a backup into
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Manager version V20.8.65 and V20.8.67 (you will need to un-install newer versions of Manager prior to installing these old versions)
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in each version create a VAT/GST report for the entire period this business has used Manager
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If they are the same then it is likely none of this is relevant for that business (the test misses refunds done on their own and entered as a positive amount. Looking for receipts in expense accounts and payments in income accounts may help find these)
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If they are different you will need to find which is actually correct, and ask your accountant how you report the error to your tax department (if your jurisdiction requires timely correction of such errors)
I do however agree with you that users need to know when their current records show past submission to any external party are no longer correct as discussed here Feature Request: Report Snapshots - #17 by Patch