Deposits and supplies

I have a client who has just started to trade through a limited company and who will provide “life coaching” services and courses to private individuals. His work is for executives of large companies but on a private basis ie with no scope for input tax recovery by the customer.

The company has taken advance deposits of £100 000 in relation to courses that will be held in the spring.

If these deposits are treated as received now this means that my client will need to be VAT registered on 1 December 2012.

However if the deposits are excluded from his turnover on the basis that no supply has taken place yet we can delay the registration until possibly February 2013. What is the correct approach?

If as I suspect the date of VAT registration is 1 December 2012 then presumably...