The vat drop down arrow has suddenly stopped working so I cannot complete an expense - it won't let me enter vat manually either - just says "invalid text .

Thanks for joining the Online Community, debbieccl.

Welcome to the QuickBooks family. Let me help move past the error, so you can successfully enter an expense.

I’ve looked into this and we don’t have any reported issues similar to your concern. Let's perform the basic resolutions steps to fix the issue.

First, open QBO using a private window or incognito mode. These sessions will not keep track of the pages you visit, the data enter into forms, or any searches you submit.

Here are the shortcut keys for each browser.

• Click Ctrl+Shift+N for Google Chrome.
• Click Ctrl+Shift+P for Internet Explorer or Firefox.
• Hold down Command+Shift+N for Safari.

In your company, create an expense and select the VAT code. If you’re able to enter the transaction, go back to your regular browser and clear its cache. 

When you visit a website, the browser stores information, files, downloads, etc. These old files can cause some display or access problems.

Otherwise, you can switch to a different browser like Firefox, Internet Explorer, Chrome, and Safari.

After following these steps, you should be able to create an expense with a VAT code.

Let me know what the results are after following the resolution. I want to make sure you’re all set with this concern.