Overview

If you hold an AWRS approval, HMRC expects two things: reasonable and proportionate checks on the businesses you buy alcohol from and sell alcohol to, and evidence that those checks were actually carried out — kept for six years. MyAWRS does both. It looks each business up on HMRC's AWRS register, verifies their VAT registration through HMRC's own API (which returns a consultation number as proof that you performed the check), and confirms at Companies House that the company still legally exists. Every check is filed as a dated, tamper-proof record with its own certificate. Alongside them sits a documented risk assessment against each of HMRC's own fraud indicators, and a store for the certificates, credit reports and approval forms that make up the rest of the file. When an inspector asks, one button produces the complete compliance file.

Features

The three register checks

AWRS lookup against HMRC's live register, with the approval status and registered name it holds
HMRC VAT verification that returns a consultation number — HMRC's own proof that you made the check
Companies House check that catches a dissolved or liquidating company before you trade with it
Suppliers and trade customers both, because HMRC requires due diligence in both directions
Check the whole register in one run, with a progress count you can stop at any point

A record that stands up to an audit

Every check filed as a dated record naming who ran it, what was submitted and what came back
A certificate PDF per check, quoting the register's response verbatim
Append-only by design: a correction is a new check that supersedes the old one, never an edit
Six-year retention enforced by the server, not merely intended — records cannot be altered or deleted
A failed check is never recorded as a finding against a business: "we could not check" and "they are not approved" stay separate

Risk assessment, as HMRC asks for it

A documented answer to each fraud indicator HMRC names — cash-only payment, prices below duty, residential premises, evasiveness about AWRS details
A rating derived from the answers, which you can override with your own judgement recorded alongside it
Unanswered questions reported as unanswered, so a half-finished form never prints as a clean assessment
Annual reassessment, with the full history kept as evidence of ongoing due diligence
Guidance on each rating: what a proportionate response actually looks like

The compliance file

Store certificates of incorporation, VAT certificates, credit reports and signed approval forms against each business
Evidence judged on the document's own date, so a three-year-old credit report is flagged rather than trusted
Missing documents reported per business — but only where they could exist, so a sole trader is never chased for a certificate of incorporation
One-click audit pack: the register plus every certificate, assessment and document, laid out one folder per business
Any evidence that could not be retrieved is named in the pack, never quietly left out

Built to be used, not filed away

The register is ordered by what needs action, not alphabetically — problems are always at the top
A business with no AWRS reference is flagged as un-checkable rather than looking "not yet checked" forever
Name-mismatch warnings catch a valid reference that belongs to a different business
A Monday morning email summarising what needs attention, silent when there is nothing to report
Shared across your team, with every check recording who ran it — light, dark, classic and high-contrast themes

Benefits

Walk into an HMRC visit with the complete compliance file already assembled, rather than reconstructing it from an inbox

Catch a struck-off wholesaler or a dissolved company before you buy from them, not afterwards

Hold HMRC's own consultation number as proof of each VAT check — materially stronger evidence than a screenshot

Never mistake a network failure for an unapproved supplier: the app keeps "we could not check" and "they are not approved" strictly apart

Show a documented judgement on every trading partner, which is the requirement three green ticks do not meet

MyAWRS