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Finance Tools

Tools for the finance side of a small business: VAT in both directions, what a late commercial payment is really worth in interest, and what a loan actually costs to repay.

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Overview

About finance tools

Tax arithmetic is where small businesses lose money quietly. Not through fraud or negligence: through a division done in the wrong direction. The classic case is removing VAT from a gross price by subtracting the rate, which takes off too much and leaves your revenue understated and your reclaim overstated. It is one of the most common errors an accountant will find, and it takes seconds to avoid.

The tools here handle three calculations that recur constantly: adding and removing VAT at any rate, working out what statutory interest a late commercial payment has accrued, and finding what a loan repayment actually comes to once the interest is spread across the term. They are built for the person doing the books on a Friday afternoon, not for a finance department with a system already in place.

As with every calculation on this site, the formula is shown alongside the result. Tax figures end up on documents that other people check, so being able to explain how you got to a number is worth more than getting it fast. If your accountant asks why a line reads the way it does, you should be able to answer.

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Free

VAT Calculator

The VAT calculator covers the calculation most people get wrong. It works in both directions at any rate (adding tax to a net amount or removing it from a gross one), and shows the net, tax and gross figures together with the formula, so the result is checkable rather than something you simply hope is right.

Open VAT Calculator

What it does

  • Add VAT to a net amount
  • Remove VAT from a gross amount
  • Any rate, including reduced and zero rates
  • Common country rate presets
  • Shows the formula so you can check the result

3 tools

All finance tools

VAT, late payment interest and loan repayments.

Why they help

What makes these finance tools worth using

  • Tax in both directions

    Add tax to a net price or strip it out of a gross one. The reverse calculation is where the mistakes happen, so it is treated as a first-class case, not an afterthought.

  • The working is shown

    Every result comes with the formula used, so you can check it, explain it to an accountant, or rebuild it in a spreadsheet.

  • Any rate, not a fixed list

    Standard, reduced and zero rates all work, alongside common country presets. Useful if you sell across more than one tax region.

  • Figures that reconcile line by line

    Tax is calculated per line rather than averaged across a total, which is what makes an invoice check out under review.

  • Nothing is recorded

    Your turnover, rates and amounts are processed in the browser and never transmitted. Financial figures are not something to hand to a free website.

  • Answers in seconds

    These are calculations you do dozens of times a quarter. Making each one instant adds up to real time back.

In practice

How these tools get used

Three situations these come up in, written the way they actually happen.

  1. A shop owner

    Working backwards from a till total

    The day's takings are recorded gross. To post them correctly you need the net figure and the tax portion separately, which means dividing by 1.2 rather than subtracting 20%. Doing it the wrong way on a month of takings misstates the return by a meaningful amount.

  2. A freelancer

    Quoting a client who asks for the price plus tax

    The client has agreed a net fee and wants to know the total they will be invoiced. You add the applicable rate, confirm the gross figure, and put both on the quote so there is no surprise when the invoice lands.

  3. A bookkeeper

    Putting a figure on an invoice nobody chased

    An invoice passed its due date in the spring and the follow-ups quietly stopped. You enter the amount, the date it fell due and the rate your contract or your jurisdiction sets, and get the interest accrued so far, what it is rising by each day, and the statutory fixed compensation where that applies. The daily figure is the one that changes the conversation: it turns a reminder into an amount that grows while the email sits unanswered.

FAQ

Finance Tools questions

The things people most often want to know before they start.

VAT if you are working out tax in either direction on a price. Late payment interest if an invoice has gone past its due date and you want to know what the delay has actually cost. Loan repayment if you are weighing up borrowing, or checking what a quoted monthly figure implies about the rate you are being charged. They share a shape rather than a subject: each turns a rate and a period into money.

Because in all three cases the correct rate depends on facts this page does not have. VAT rates differ by country and by what you sell. Statutory interest is a central bank rate plus a fixed margin, and the rate half is the one in force on the preceding 30 June or 31 December rather than today's. A loan rate is whatever you were actually offered. A figure printed here would be right for some readers for a while, and quietly wrong for everyone else.

After. Tax applies to the amount actually charged, so apply the discount first and calculate tax on the reduced figure.

Calculate tax per line and total the tax column. Applying an average rate to the subtotal introduces rounding differences and produces a figure that cannot be reconciled line by line, which is the kind of thing that turns a routine inspection into a longer one.

Each of the three has a different authority behind it. VAT treatment is a question for an accountant in your jurisdiction, because rates and rules vary by country and by what you sell. Statutory interest is set by legislation, and the late payment page cites the Act and the order that fix the rate. A borrowing decision comes down to the lender's own figures, since their fees and compounding decide the real cost. These calculators tell you what to expect before those conversations rather than replacing them.

Guides

Further reading

Articles that go deeper on the topics these tools cover.

Keep exploring

Other tools people tend to need alongside these.

Get started with finance tools

Every tool here is free, needs no account, and runs in your browser. Pick one and start working.

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