Changing the "Tax Point Date"

[zgap111]

I currently have an order just now fully paid... over 12x bank transfers over a period of 2 months...
I want to invoice today (11th Jan 2021), but the tax point date is in November 2020

I thought I was able in the past to be able to change the "tax point" date... but I can't

It's somewhow set to be the date of a payment receipt?

This is a problem as sometimes customers underpay = delay, prepayment requirement before manufacture = invoice date not same as payment received date...

I can only change the tax point date via editing the database

edit:
In this case it's an export order, so the tax side of things is nil... but this date is seen as the Invoice Date also...

I believe we've had EU orders in late December which were "held"... and we only shipped them last week (Jan2021)... I've not seen them, but I would assume all the tax point dates (seen as invoice dates) are all December 2020... not January 2021

[Mike Hughes]

I think this is correct.

If I remember my VAT rules, the tax point is the date at which the obligation to supply the goods or services is incurred.

Here's the HMRC rules in a table. The tax point date for most the circumstances you mention is the payment date or invoice date, whichever is the earlier. Not the shipment date.

Situation >> Tax Point

No invoice needed	Date of supply
VAT invoice issued	Date of invoice
VAT invoice issued 15 days or more after the date of supply	Date the supply took place
Payment or invoice issued in advance of supply	Date of payment or invoice (whichever is earlier)
Payment in advance of supply and no VAT invoice yet issued	Date payment received

https://www.gov.uk/vat-record-keepin...y-or-tax-point

[zgap111]

That's great! Good to know.

However... that notice wasn't clear on the advance payment as ours was partially paid.

So... see section 2.11 for this : https://www.gov.uk/guidance/vat-on-g...-uk-notice-703

Says this:

The time of supply determines when a supply of goods or services is treated as taking place. This is called the tax point.
In most cases the time of supply will be the earlier of either the date you

• send the goods to your customer or your customer takes them away
• receive full payment for the goods

This one clearly says "full payment"

So for us... the full payment was finally received today... should be today's date, and not the 1st payment back in November 2020...

A way to edit the tax date would be nice.

[Mike Hughes]

Mots of the time that is true but I think payments in advance (even if not in full, such as a deposit, etc) create the actual tax point for VAT purposes.

i.e. Notice 700, section 14 says

But whether you supply goods or services, the basic tax point is overridden if an actual tax point is created under paragraph 14.2.2.

14.2.2 Actual tax points

(a) either issue a VAT invoice or receive a payment before the basic tax point

tax point for the amount you invoice or receive is the date you issue the invoice or receive the payment, whichever happens first. Payment can include payment by book entry, for example, the off-setting of supplies or mutual debts. The tax point is when the entry is made. If the payment by book entry is in the form of an adjustment in your annual accounts, the tax point is the date the accounts are approved, provided no previous tax point has occurred

In terms of deposits it says

14.2.3 Deposits


Most deposits serve primarily as advance payments and will create tax points under paragraph 14.2.2(a) when you receive them.

Which implies that advance payments, even if not in full, create the (or just a ?) tax point.

I agree that however you're going to treat it, the Tax point should be editable. Sellerdeck is not an accounting system and it should be possible to change and edit things without it getting in the way. Particularly as it can be done in the database anyway, so someone trying to do it for nefarious purposes can get around any limitation set at the user interface level.

[brucet]

In general a tax point is created when a payment is taken, an invoice is issued or the goods are shipped - whichever occurs first. Once created I don't think you can legally change it. You would have to cancel the order and create a new one.

[zgap111]

Sellerdeck is not an accounting system

I know... it can do invoices, but has never been able to do credit notes... I once asked Sellerdeck to send me a credit note for something that was overcharged...

Anyway,

I called HMRC... She looked at both Notices 700 and 703 and put me on hold a few times checking with someone else...
and in the end... for my situation, the tax point date is when "full payment" is received as in agreement with VAT Notice 703 Section 2.11

= we have 3 months from today's date to provide evidence that goods were exported to allow for Zero VAT.
(if it was from November, we would have 1 month... if items weren't ready and we had to take 2 months to produce it... then total time would have been 4 months = we have exceeded the 3 months to provide evidence of export.

So... editable tax point date required please
or
whichever first for tax point when : order is fully paid / goods shipped / invoice issued

[brucet]

I've tested and confirmed that a partial payment, in and of itself, does not set the tax point, see the attached screen shot.

I've added your request to our wish list, but realistically it's an area that we would be very reluctant to touch, lest we create a loophole that falls foul of some other aspect of the regs, which are complex. As you have seen, the authorities themselves sometimes struggle to find the right answer! (You are not the first customer to have that experience ).

It's likely to be a rare occurrence - I've never heard of a similar incident TBH. The safe way to handle it IMO is to cancel the order and create a new one.

[zgap111]

I've tested and confirmed that a partial payment, in and of itself, does not set the tax point, see the attached screen shot.

It's normally blank and date shows up when you print an invoice.

I've added your request to our wish list, but realistically it's an area that we would be very reluctant to touch, lest we create a loophole that falls foul of some other aspect of the regs, which are complex. As you have seen, the authorities themselves sometimes struggle to find the right answer! (You are not the first customer to have that experience ).

It's likely to be a rare occurrence - I've never heard of a similar incident TBH.

Nice to have... I don't like to edit the database.

The safe way to handle it IMO is to cancel the order and create a new one.

I would, if I could...
#1 : this order had 50+ line items and over 12 payment transations...
#2 : if I could have the same order number, on the newly created one = it's possible... but you can't... and for our HMRC compliance inspection, a requirement is to "prove payment"... and the payments all refer to an order number...

=========================================================

When I manually changed the date (to Jan21), at some point it reverted back to the date of Nov20

For clarity on what value I modified in the database, in SQL Management I ran this

SELECT [Order Sequence Number], [Order Number], sInvoiceNumber, sTaxPoint
FROM [Order]
WHERE ([Order Number] = '#####')
ORDER BY [Order Number]

##### = the order number
I modified the sTaxPoint field

The tax point date is updated but then later reverts to the old date...
so I had to quickly print when I could.

So it at some point the order refreshed itself and re-applied a setting... and I'm guessing this might be happening in the background:

When you listed the 3 things (date paid vs date sent vs date invoiced)
Assume all 3 dates (will eventually) exist in the database so is there a flag in the database to use which date?
eg.
Date Paid = A1 A2 A3 A4...
Date Sent = B
Date Invoice = C
Tax point date = use earliest date of : Ax / B / C
If this is the case, maybe a quick fix would be to have an optional drop down selector on date to use?

===================================================================

I was also wondering if I removed all the payments (there were over 12 in this order so I can't test on that... maybe later), would that reset the date to blank and then to current 1st payment?
eg.
Payment 1 = Nov2020 : sellerdeck makes this the tax point date
If I removed that Nov20 payment today and re-enter it, defaults with current date = in Jan21... I assume the Nov date would not show anymore?... needs a test... but I'm lack of time here...

[brucet]

Once a tax point is set, I don't think it's possible to change it, unfortunately. And I don't think you're legally permitted to. Without knowing what happened in November that caused the software to set a tax point, I can't really comment further.

[zgap111]

It was a payment that set it - See attached images (I don't know why and I never noticed, it's not in date order, and that's 4 of the payments others were on another page - all out of order but 16/11/20 was the earliest date)

Order received was in October, earliest date in payments = 16/11/20 = tax point date

So, after changing it in the database to 11/01/21... I've managed to get it to reset back to the November date:

Do this:

Edit the shipping address and you will get a window popup

You are changing an order for which you have already issued an invoice. If you proceed then you should manually void the previous invoice and issue a new one. If that is not possible then take other steps to ensure your tax records are correct.

Do you wish to proceed?

Once you say yes, it blanks off the tax point and invoice number

Then, print an invoice... and voila... tax point date back to 16/11/20 = oldest dated payment

It is important that date is correct as it sets the time limit in Notice 703 for aquiriing the export evidence.

===========================================================================

If the tax point date here is determined by the earliest payment date...
then...
I'll have to find the payments for this order and change the relevant the date

[zgap111]

See attached image

When I enter today a payment that arrived to our bank yesterday evening.

The date defaults to today's date... cannot specify the actual date of when the payment was received... (I can only make a note in the comments of the actual date...)

Is there a reason why there isn't a date that can be correct here?

Date of receipt is wrong... and is wrong if used for the "tax point" date...

Workaround : Back date my computer?
(I'm getting really fed up with the amount of workarounds I have to do... and to teach someone also of all these extra steps...)

[Mike Hughes]

I agree. One of the two date fields should be the 'Payment Received' date rather than 'date Created' and 'date Actioned' and it should be settable on creation.

[brucet]

Sellerdeck doesn't record the date when the actual payment was received - it doesn't normally have access to that information. I don't think we've ever been asked for it before. It simply records the time and date when the transaction information was entered.

You may be trying to use a nutcracker to break a rock. It sounds like the kind of record-keeping that requires a proper accounting application.

[zgap111]

Sellerdeck doesn't record the date when the actual payment was received - it doesn't normally have access to that information.

When it's a manual entry... of course it won't have access to that information, so I should be able enter a date - all software requires (expect Sellerdeck)

I will need to enter the receipt date, and not have Sellerdeck set it automatically to the system date

I don't think we've ever been asked for it before. It simply records the time and date when the transaction information was entered.

Most orders are prepaid by card/Paypal and we don't have this problem.

It's the few that are paid by bank transfers, some even by cheque... and these are mainly for export... and export documentation needs to be 100% correct, esp now the whole of the EU is included

"Tax Point Date" needs to be correct

You may be trying to use a nutcracker to break a rock

It's always hard to get Sellerdeck to fix problems and since there there's no demand... I expect this to remain broken

I would say for us it will be 99% correct... but 1% will be wrong... and when it's mainly export... and when it's wrong, these are the ones where we are fined on.

It sounds like the kind of record-keeping that requires a proper accounting application.

I just need the "Tax Point Date" to be correct on the invoice

I agree that Sellerdeck is not a proper accounting application
- I did suggest in the distant past that it should be developed into one so it makes it even more attactive as the "all-in-one" application = more sales...
Accounting applications are relatively simple programs... but Sellerdeck is much more complicated and is in a better position to expand to include accounts.
ie. I reckon I can muster up a simple Purchase / Sales Ledger / Stock Control in a database, vs creating Sellerdeck.

Sellerdeck needs two fixes related to "dates":
#1 : Manual entries of payments : correct date to be entered, not auto set to system date at time of entry
#2 : Tax Point Date to be editable - only for when Sellerdeck's formula for it is wrong and needs correcting

[zgap111]

It sounds like the kind of record-keeping that requires a proper accounting application.

My suggestion of Sellerdeck to expand to accounting application:

A few years back, I was surprised that when Sellerdeck overcharged us and we were owed a credit note... Sellerdeck was unable to send us a credit note or a statement of our account.
It took months of asking and in the end I got some sort of excel calculation sheet... no credit note. I gave up at that point and hope that the Tax Man did not see us claim VAT that was wrong without a valid credit note... I think in the end I got a sort of letter from Sellerdeck stating the facts...

I expected Sellerdeck used Sage (esp for testing Sage Link etc)... but our invoices from Sellerdeck has always looked like it comes from a non-accounting application

I don't think we've ever been asked for it before.

I have noticed this problem with Tax Point Date for some time, but we had 6 months on our main exports... the EU ones are a lot more and we only have 3 months.

I see many problem and don't report it... when I do... nothing happens, however with Brexit, this one needs to be:

Now EU ones are also in the export process:
#1 : the time has halved for us to gather evidence for EU indirect exports
#2 : there are a lot more EU orders vs other rest of world exports... so more orders required to change the locked dates in Sellerdeck