Product Pricing and VAT

[LesleyN]

When we first set up our actinic store we weren't VAT registered, however, we have now passed the threshold and although still waiting for our VAT number I’ve been looking at the easiest way to make the necessary changes to our site. As we have over 500 products and our product range includes zero and normal VAT rates, it was easier to make the VAT changes to our Sage software and import rather than make changes to each actinic product. Now all of the products have the correct VAT rate assigned and we have set up the shop page to display the prices including VAT. My only problem is that the items which have VAT set at the normal rate (17.5%) have actually added on 17.5% to the price. We’re not increasing our prices now that we're VAT registered the prices will remain the same as before.

Therefore can anyone explain how I can set up the products so that the price I enter into the Product Price Field is the actual price they pay (whether or not an element of it is VAT). The only way I can see to get through this is by changing the price in the Product Price Field to be the price less VAT, which means I have to go into all the products which VAT is payable on and work out the price and change it – not easy with nearly 300 products which need VAT included in the price!

Any words of wisdom would be much appreciated.
Lesley

[wjcampbe]

The only 'easy' way is to export your products to excel, retain only the minimum required columns, rename the current price column, then add a new column named Price. In the new column calculate the correct price using a formula, copy the completed column and paste special - values into the same space. Import into Actinic.

[TraceyHand]

we need to do exactly this very soon.
There should be an easier way to do it through the Actinic software, IMO

[nacotton]

Lesley,

This doesn't count as words of wisdom... but here's what I've learnt...

1. You can follow Bill's excellent advice of doing the manipulation once in Excel and reimporting. This will avoid you having to calculate the ex-VAT price manually for every VATable product.

2. However, Actinic will not always give you the right inc-VAT price once it has added VAT back on. Try this with a product that you were selling at £99.00 before... if you divide this price by 1.175 to take the VAT off, you get £84.255319. If you give it a price of £84.25, Actinic will present the inc-VAT price as £98.99. If you give it a price of £84.26, Actinic will present the inc-VAT price as £99.01. Irritating, hey?

3. If you do no export business, and most of your business is to private individuals (who don't care about the VAT as they can't claim it back), then you can switch off Actinic's tax calculations altogether and just continue to use a single price on the website. You will need to put a description of the VAT status of each product against it somewhere (small text on the site saying "price includes VAT at 17.5%" or "no VAT is chargeable on this product", etc) - and you'd need to offer to send separate VAT invoices to anyone who wanted one (eg corporate customers not private individuals), which potentially creates a bit of a gap in the whole automation, but maybe a Sage invoice printed as a pdf file would be easiest... over to other, cleverer, contributors to help thereafter...

4. I'm afraid I have no experience of linking to Sage, so I'm afraid I can't help you with that bit.

GOOD LUCK. I think this whole area of pricing and VAT is a major issue for a lot of retail uses of Actinic (I'm only on my third Actinic site, and the first one was entirely for trade customers, but all three have had big issues with pricing and VAT).

Cheers from the wilds of Fulham,

Neill.

[Jan]

People find this tool useful for doing this sort of thing, you can use it to reduce all product prices by a certain percentage in one go or you can get it to export a list of prices that you can then changed them and import them back into Actinc. It has a 30 day trial that you could use to sort this out.

http://www.mole-end.biz/acatalog/Profit_and_Price.html

Regards.

[LesleyN]

Thanks for the advice everyone - much appreciated.

Until there is an integrated fix to this I think we will go with Neil's option 3 as we can issue invoices from Sage (which show the correct prices) for our corporate customers.

Neil - did you find an easy place to add this message/note about VAT? We use a grid layout for product sections with an image, title and price only. When the advanced tax mode is used the products which include VAT have the price and in brackets next to it a message saying (VAT included at 17.5%). For zero-rated items there is no message afterwards. I'm not sure if by law we have to show if the price includes VAT every time the price appears. If not then we would add it to the extended info page which includes all the product details.

As a business user of actinic can I just endorse what has been said above (and probably elsewhere on this site many times) that robust and easy VAT calculation is a fundamental feature of any e-commerce software. It would be useful to know from any actinic staff if this is being addressed for future releases?

Best wishes
Lesley

[cdicken]

It would be useful to know from any actinic staff if this is being addressed for future releases?

Yep - I can't find the thread where we talk about it, but we're doing a big tax overhaul for the next version, which should address your problems in this area.

[LesleyN]

Great news regarding the next release but do you know if anyone is working on a 'work around' for us current users?
Cheers
Lesley

[cdicken]

Hi Lesley

There's a workaround to convert all your prices to to be VAT-exclusive on the knowledge base here:

http://knowledge.actinic.com/acatalo..._362.html#a726

Hope that helps

[bangers]

useful information about vat invoices/reciepts from inland revenue

Found this thread when I was looking to see wether or not I could avoid actinic vat problems for customer who has just gone vat registered.

I then contacted the inland revenue for a definitive answer. Though the below (from vat guide, notice 700, section 16.6 states £100 as upper limit for less detailed vat invoice the HMRC representive stated it was £250 to me)

Hope the below is useful:

16.6 Less detailed and modified VAT invoices
If you make retail sales, you should give your customer a VAT invoice if asked for one. However, you may be able to use one of the options described at 16.6.1 and 16.6.2 below (see also paragraph 16.2.1).

You may be liable to a financial penalty if you do not issue a VAT invoice when asked to do so by a taxable person.

16.6.1 Less detailed VAT invoice

If the charge you make for the individual supply…
is £100 or less (including VAT)

Then you can issue an invoice showing:

• your name, address and VAT registration number;
• the time of supply (tax point);
• a description which identifies the goods or services supplied;
• and for each VAT rate applicable, the total amount payable, including VAT and the VAT rate charged, shown in sterling.
• Exempt supplies must not be included in this type of VAT invoice.

exceeds £100 and you are asked for a VAT invoice
must issue either a:

• full VAT invoice (see paragraph 16.3): or
• modified VAT invoice (see 16.6.2 below).

If you accept credit cards, such as Visa/Mastercard or Barclaycard, you may adapt the sales voucher you give to the cardholder at the time of the sale to serve as a less detailed VAT invoice.

The credit card voucher should show:

• your name and address;
• the charge made, including VAT; and
• the date of sale.
• You must add to the voucher:
• your VAT registration number;
• the rate of VAT; and
• a description of the goods or services supplied.
• If you also issue an invoice or receipt, only one of the documents may be in the form of a VAT invoice.

16.6.2 Modified VAT invoice

Provided your customer agrees, you can issue an invoice showing:

the VAT-inclusive value of each standard-rated or reduced rate supply (instead of the VAT-exclusive values).
At the foot of the invoice, it must show separately the total:

• VAT-inclusive value of the standard-rated or reduced rate supplies;
• VAT payable on those supplies;
• value, excluding VAT, of those supplies;
• value of any zero-rated supplies included on the invoice; and
• value of any exempt supplies included on the invoice.
• In all other respects the invoice should show the details required for a full VAT invoice.

If you are asked for a VAT invoice, but are unable to use either of these options, you must issue a full VAT invoice (see paragraph 16.3).

more info:
http://customs.hmrc.gov.uk/channelsP...543#P489_38467

regards
Bangers