Readers’ forum: Invoicing strategy

I act for a client whose limited company consultancy business has enjoyed a successful trading year due to lockdown issues. He is not registered for VAT and has been closely monitoring the total of his rolling 12-month sales invoices checking that the total has never exceeded the registration threshold of £85 000.

However he established that his annual sales would exceed £85 000 on 30 June which by coincidence was the end of his financial year. So to avoid a problem he changed his policy of invoicing his clients from the final day of the calendar month to the first day of the next one; in other words he invoiced clients for his June work on 1 July keeping his annual sales to 30 June below £85 000.

My queries are twofold:

• Is this acceptable as far as VAT registration is...