Global VAT and sales tax software for Clear Books
Clear Books submits VAT returns straight to HMRC with no bridging software, and files MTD for Income Tax quarterly updates. Both of its EU-labelled VAT features file to HMRC as well. Commenda registers you in the EU and the US, files the OSS and IOSS returns, and covers all 45 states that levy sales tax.
Trusted by global businesses
Keep HMRC, add every other authority
Clear Books submits VAT returns directly to HMRC with no bridging software, and files MTD for Income Tax quarterly updates. Commenda takes on the authorities it has no return for, across 70+ countries and all 50 US states.
File the EU return as well as the UK one
Clear Books' two EU-labelled VAT features both point at HMRC: the reverse charge on what you buy, and the EC Sales List. Commenda registers you for OSS or IOSS and files the return that goes to the member state.
Monitor your global exposure
Clear Books tracks the VAT liability you already have. Commenda measures the same sales against economic and physical thresholds in 50 states and 70+ countries, and alerts you at 80% of a threshold.
Coverage comparison
What Clear Books files, and where it stops
Clear Books has filed UK tax for UK businesses since 2008. These are the seven jobs a business selling outside the UK has to cover. Its figures come from its own pricing page, full feature list, product tour, and Making Tax Digital page, checked on July 30, 2026.
UK VAT returns
- Clear Books
- Handled. Submitted direct to HMRC with no bridging, from the Medium plan up
- Commenda
- Filed too, on the same calendar as every other country you owe
VAT owed to an EU member state
- Clear Books
- Not handled. Its EU reverse charge covers VAT you owe on supplier invoices
- Commenda
- Destination rate applied per sale, then declared on the OSS or IOSS return
Registering somewhere new
- Clear Books
- Not handled. You hold one UK registration and connect it to HMRC
- Commenda
- Permits in all 50 states, EU VAT with OSS and IOSS, and GST across APAC and Canada
US sales tax
- Clear Books
- Not handled. Its tax features are UK VAT, CIS and MTD for Income Tax
- Commenda
- Calculated, filed and remitted in all 45 states that levy it
Knowing you owe tax somewhere new
- Clear Books
- Not handled. It tracks the liability you have, not the ones you are building
- Commenda
- Thresholds tracked in 50 states and 70+ countries, with alerts at 80%
Exemption certificates
- Clear Books
- Stored, not collected. Reverse charge treatment relies on your own records
- Commenda
- Collected, validated, stored, and applied automatically where they are valid
Selling in more than one currency
- Clear Books
- Partly. Multi-currency invoicing and bank accounts sit on the top plan only
- Commenda
- Every jurisdiction filed in its own currency, from one subscription
| Clear Books |  | |
|---|---|---|
| UK VAT returns | Handled. Submitted direct to HMRC with no bridging, from the Medium plan up | Filed too, on the same calendar as every other country you owe |
| VAT owed to an EU member state | Not handled. Its EU reverse charge covers VAT you owe on supplier invoices | Destination rate applied per sale, then declared on the OSS or IOSS return |
| Registering somewhere new | Not handled. You hold one UK registration and connect it to HMRC | Permits in all 50 states, EU VAT with OSS and IOSS, and GST across APAC and Canada |
| US sales tax | Not handled. Its tax features are UK VAT, CIS and MTD for Income Tax | Calculated, filed and remitted in all 45 states that levy it |
| Knowing you owe tax somewhere new | Not handled. It tracks the liability you have, not the ones you are building | Thresholds tracked in 50 states and 70+ countries, with alerts at 80% |
| Exemption certificates | Stored, not collected. Reverse charge treatment relies on your own records | Collected, validated, stored, and applied automatically where they are valid |
| Selling in more than one currency | Partly. Multi-currency invoicing and bank accounts sit on the top plan only | Every jurisdiction filed in its own currency, from one subscription |
Calculate taxes globally on Clear Books using Commenda
Clear Books calculates against UK VAT rates and schemes. Commenda works out the rate that actually applies from the customer's country and what you sold, line by line. A digital service to an EU consumer gets that consumer's local rate. Goods get the rate where the transport ends. A US sale gets the combined state, county, city and district rate for the ship-to address.
Track your global exposure from Clear Books
Clear Books reports on the UK VAT registration you hold. Commenda reads the same sales and measures everywhere you sold, registered or not, against economic and physical thresholds in all 50 states and 70+ countries. Connecting Clear Books backfills your history, so exposure you already carry appears next to this quarter's invoices. Alerts fire at 80% of a threshold.
Automatically remit transactions around the world
Clear Books submits your VAT return and your EC Sales List to HMRC. Commenda prepares and files what goes elsewhere from the same data: the OSS return quarterly, IOSS monthly, US state returns on each state's own frequency, and GST across APAC and Canada. Remittance is tracked per jurisdiction, and amended returns are filed where a period needs correcting.
Manage your customers and exemptions in one place
Clear Books supports the domestic reverse charge for construction and the reverse charge on EU supplier VAT, both of which depend on the counterparty being what your records say they are. Commenda validates each customer tax ID and stores it against the record with the system it came from. US exemption certificates are collected through a portal, applied where valid, and chased on expiry.
Consolidation
Why every Clear Books VAT feature points at HMRC
Clear Books is built for UK small businesses, landlords and construction firms, and it does UK filing properly. Selling outside the UK is a different job: a registration in another country, a rate you do not set, and a return on someone else's calendar. Commenda covers that.
Both EU features on the list file to HMRC
Clear Books' feature list carries two EU items. EU Reverse Charge accounts for VAT on what you buy from EU suppliers. The EC Sales List is a report submitted to HMRC. Neither one is a return to a member state. The VAT a UK company owes on a B2C sale into the EU is owed to the customer's country, and there is no feature for that.
A UK seller gets no EU threshold to sit under
The EU's EUR 10,000 place-of-supply threshold only applies where the supplier is established in exactly one member state. A UK company is established in none of them. So the place of supply is the customer's member state from the first sale, IOSS covers imported consignments up to EUR 150, and a non-EU business needs an EU-established intermediary to use IOSS at all. Commenda arranges that as part of global indirect tax registration.
US thresholds count total sales into a state
A UK business selling to US customers faces 45 states that levy sales tax, each with its own economic nexus threshold. Those tests run on total sales into a state from every channel you use, and a construction or ecommerce business rarely runs one channel. Clear Books holds the invoices raised in Clear Books, and no state cares which system a sale came from.
One ledger behind every channel
Every source connects to one ledger. Each transaction carries its origin, its product code, and any tax already collected, so marketplace revenue stays separate from revenue that still needs tax. The result is one exposure figure per state and per country, one return per period, and every line traceable back to the invoice it came from.
Cost of growth
What cross-border tax costs on top of Clear Books
Clear Books publishes both its prices and its plan gating, and it has a permanently free plan. What the gating shows is where each VAT feature starts: submission on the middle plan, multi-currency on the top one, and no authority outside HMRC on either.
| What you need | Where Clear Books puts it |
|---|---|
| Where MTD VAT submission starts | The Medium plan at £34 a month plus VAT. The Small plan at £16 has no MTD VAT submission and no flat rate scheme |
| Where multi-currency starts | The Large plan at £44 a month plus VAT. Foreign currency bank accounts, invoices and bills are all on that plan only |
| What the EU-labelled features do | EU Reverse Charge accounts for VAT from EU suppliers. EC Sales List produces a report and submits it to HMRC. Both are Medium and above |
| Construction Industry Scheme | Domestic reverse charge for construction, plus CIS reporting and online filing, from the Medium plan up |
| The free plans | Sole Trader Free, Property Free and Foreign Property Free are permanently free and cover MTD Income Tax quarterly updates and year-end filing |
| What Foreign Property covers | UK income tax reporting on overseas rental income. It is not foreign VAT, and it does not register you anywhere abroad |
| VAT for a VAT-registered sole trader | The Sole Trader Plus plan at £15 a month plus VAT, which adds MTD VAT reporting, the flat rate scheme and the VAT domestic reverse charge |
Where MTD VAT submission starts
The Medium plan at £34 a month plus VAT. The Small plan at £16 has no MTD VAT submission and no flat rate scheme
Where multi-currency starts
The Large plan at £44 a month plus VAT. Foreign currency bank accounts, invoices and bills are all on that plan only
What the EU-labelled features do
EU Reverse Charge accounts for VAT from EU suppliers. EC Sales List produces a report and submits it to HMRC. Both are Medium and above
Construction Industry Scheme
Domestic reverse charge for construction, plus CIS reporting and online filing, from the Medium plan up
The free plans
Sole Trader Free, Property Free and Foreign Property Free are permanently free and cover MTD Income Tax quarterly updates and year-end filing
What Foreign Property covers
UK income tax reporting on overseas rental income. It is not foreign VAT, and it does not register you anywhere abroad
VAT for a VAT-registered sole trader
The Sole Trader Plus plan at £15 a month plus VAT, which adds MTD VAT reporting, the flat rate scheme and the VAT domestic reverse charge
Figures verified on July 30, 2026 against Clear Books full feature list and Clear Books pricing.
From the field
Trusted by businesses across the globe
“The platform works exactly the way I need it to. I have one team member who manages all of our exemption certificates, and that functionality has been particularly efficient for us. It allows him to handle everything seamlessly, making the handoff significantly easier.”
VP of Finance, TRX
Compare Commenda sales tax software with competitors
If HMRC is the only authority you file with, Clear Books already does it. We compare the cross-border alternatives side by side on coverage, ratings, and real pricing, and we say where each one wins.
More sales tax resources
Guides from the Commenda team on holding stock in Europe, EU VAT for a non-EU business, and your first US filing.
Frequently asked questions
Yes, to HMRC. Clear Books is on the official MTD-recognised software list and submits the return directly with no bridging software, and it also files MTD for Income Tax quarterly updates and the year-end return. Worth knowing which plan you need: MTD VAT submission starts on the Medium plan at £34 a month plus VAT, and the Small plan at £16 does not include it. Commenda files the returns that do not go to HMRC, across 70+ countries and all 50 US states.
No, it covers your EU purchases. Clear Books describes the feature as accounting for VAT from EU suppliers, which is the VAT you owe on what you buy. Its other EU item, the EC Sales List, is a report submitted to HMRC. Neither is a return to a member state. VAT on a B2C sale into the EU is owed to the customer's country, and that means an OSS or IOSS registration and a return on the EU calendar. Commenda handles both.
Cash, accrual and flat rate. Clear Books lists all three on its product tour, alongside real-time VAT liability tracking and digital records linked from invoice to return. The flat rate scheme sits on the Medium plan and above for organisations, or on the Sole Trader Plus plan at £15 a month plus VAT. Commenda does not change how your UK return is prepared. It adds the registrations and returns outside the UK, where the flat rate scheme does not exist.
Yes. Clear Books supports the VAT domestic reverse charge for building and construction services, plus CIS reporting and online filing, from the Medium plan up, and Sole Trader Plus covers the domestic reverse charge for a VAT-registered sole trader. That is a genuinely useful UK feature and Commenda leaves it alone. What Commenda adds is the tax on materials, plant or labour sold across a border, where the reverse charge rules are the destination country's rather than HMRC's.
No. Its tax features are UK VAT, the Construction Industry Scheme, and Making Tax Digital for Income Tax. Nothing in its pricing, feature list or tour addresses US state sales tax. A UK business selling to US customers faces 45 states that levy it, each setting its own economic nexus threshold, registration process and filing frequency. Commenda registers you, calculates tax at the transaction, tracks exposure in all 50 states, and files and remits the returns.
No. Foreign Property is a Making Tax Digital plan for UK income tax on overseas rental income, so it reports your foreign property profit to HMRC. It does not register you for tax in the country the property sits in, and it does not touch VAT anywhere. If you also sell goods or services into that country, that is a separate registration and a separate return, and it is the part Commenda takes on.
Usually no. OSS lets you register in one EU member state and file for cross-border B2C sales across all 27 countries plus Northern Ireland from that single registration. Some countries change the answer: Belgium, for example, requires fiscal representation and a security deposit for a local registration, so registering elsewhere and using OSS is often simpler. Where a fiscal representative is required, we arrange it as part of the registration rather than leaving you to source one.
Yes. You switch between entities on one dashboard with consolidated visibility of registrations, exposure and filings, rather than a separate tool per entity. Access and roles are assigned by entity and by function, so the person handling UK VAT and the person handling US sales tax each work in their own area while leadership keeps one consolidated view.
Custom integration support for your business
Every business runs its accounting differently, and those processes exist for good reasons. We map how yours works and build the integration to match, rather than asking you to work around ours.
Indirect Tax
Monitor nexus exposure, register, file, and remit sales tax and VAT in one platform. Commenda keeps you compliant across 100+ jurisdictions.
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