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More about The ATOL Reporting Accountants’ scheme

 

I am Beccy Blake from CRM. I joined CRM in July 2011 and I have since gained my ACCA qualification.

I am involved in many different services within CRM such as the preparation of statutory accounts, tax returns and management accounts. I also specialise in the travel and tourism industry.

The ATOL Reporting Accountants’ scheme was developed by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) to ensure that the standard of ATOL reporting is accurate and that sufficient assurance can be given. The ATOL holder is required to provide financial data from the profit and loss and balance sheet to the CAA.

The ATOL report needs to be signed by an ATOL Reporting Accountant (ARA) from 1st April 2016 onwards. The ATOL Reporting Accountant is designated under the ARA scheme and is engaged by the ATOL holder to report on the information provided to the CAA.

Chapman, Robinson and Moore are registered and licenced by ICAEW to be ATOL Reporting Accountants and carry out such work.

In order to ensure that the information you report to the CAA is accurate and can be relied upon and in order for the ATOL Reporting Accountant to sign the ATOL report, you will need to ensure that you keep sufficient records.

The key things to consider are:

·     Ensure that you keep clear records of sales made during the year. This can be done by ensuring that all sales invoices are entered into your accounting system in a timely manner. It is also important to keep copies of all sales invoices generated during the year.

·     Ensure that your sales are correctly distinguishable between licensable and non-licensable sales. A key point to consider here is that licensable sales are those made to an individual and non-licensable sales are made to businesses. In order to keep a clear record it is recommended that these are recorded separately in your accounting system. This can be done by creating two nominal codes that differentiate between the two.

·     Ensure that a record is kept for the income reported to the CAA on part 1 of the form. This will be used as part of the reconciliation and must therefore be accurate.

·     As revenue must be recognised when payment is received, it is important that you keep a clear log of the departure date on your accounting system for each sale. This will help with the reconciliation between revenue recognised (cash received) and revenue based on departure date in part two of the form.

Ultimately if clear records are kept as stated in the above, we may need to spend less time reporting to the CAA and therefore your fee could be significantly lower.

If we can support you with your reporting or if you would like further advice on how to keep clear records, please do not hesitate to contact us.

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