It is that time of the month again. You have a VAT submission deadline looming and you are finally ready to process your VAT return, but you have encountered a problem with your submission.  You are probably thinking this is the worst-case scenario but let us not panic because you have us here at Sage Customer Services, ready to help you.

To start, you should always check our knowledgebase - If it’s a known issue, this is where you will find the answer. If you are unable to find a solution, it is time to raise a support case with us.

As with all cases, it is imperative you provide as much detail as possible on what it was you were trying to do when you encountered an issue, ideally with replication steps. Please ensure you provide screenshots of any error messages, including any sequence of messages.

However, given the time sensitive nature for MTD cases there are few additional bits of information you could provide us to help speed up our investigation and expedite escalating your case to find a resolution as quickly as possible.

The first requirement will be a screenshot of the Sage RR bundle version. In order to retrieve this information; remain logged into Sage X3 and replace everything in the URL beyond the port number being used with the Host Domain, as highlighted in the screen shot below, with bundle-sage-rr/version.

This will return the information on the current version of the Sage RR bundle, as can be seen in the screenshot below;

Capture this information, preferably with a screenshot and attach this to your case.

The next bit of information we will need are the Last Calls. This will provide details of the all the communication exchanged between the Sage RR API and HMRC.  This will give us an indication of where the issue lies for your problem, particularly if you are having trouble connecting, authenticating, or retrieving data from HMRC. In order to acquire this information, you will need add bundle-sage-rr/lastCalls to the end of your Host Domain:Port/ - just as you did for the Sage RR version bundle.

You should see details for all the calls made, grouped by the VAT registration number being used for your company. Save all of the information in a document and attach this to your case.

If the page appears blank, you will need to clear your browser cache and try again. The page is live, so it can remain open in a second tab as you attempt to complete your VAT submission in another browser tab, the information will populate and update as and when the Sage RR API communicates with HMRC. This page will also appear blank if you have reset Mongo DB, this is not advisable unless instructed to do so, after our investigation, by a support consultant.

The final requirement is to provide the Sage RR logs but first you need to change the settings from the default level which is error to debug. To do this;

1. Navigate to Administration > Administration > Settings > Global Settings
2. Click on edit from the right menu
3. Click on the Logs tab
4. Scroll down to the server log code sage-rr
5. On the level column, for this row, change the value from Error to Debug
6. Click on Save on the right menu

As can be seen in the screenshot below, there are multiple levels of information that can be produced on the log. As you go from top to bottom on the options, more information will be displayed on the log. However for the purposes of submitting a support case, you will need to set this to debug.

After you have saved this changed. Proceed back to the VAT return function and attempt to complete your submission until you encounter your issue. This will be captured on the Sage RR Syracuse logs. The logs must be recovered from the server and can be found in the logs folder, as per the path shown in the screenshot below;

Sort the logs by date modified to look at those most recently active. Log ending LB is load balancer which decides which node is going to be used to call the function. Log ending N0 (Node 0) and N1 (Node 1), these logs will be called depending on the usage being distributed by the load balancer. Copy both logs and send them to support. We will then analyse the logs, searching for Sage-RR and if it does not appear in that log, that means that Sage RR bundle was not used on those dates on that node.

Once we have all of this information, our investigation will be swifter, as we endeavour to find a solution for you. Rest assured, we will do everything we can to resolve your issue before your submission deadline, however we do recommend the submission is completed earlier, leaving a sufficient buffer to resolve any unforeseen problems.