Intermittent VAT exempt problem

[TraceyHand]

This is driving me nuts now (things usually are by the time I'm driven to posting!)

I have an annoying intermittent problem with overseas orders and VAT (9.0.3. Vat inclusive pricing)

Actinic is set to not charge VAT on orders outside the EU and, 90% of the time, this works fine on both products and shipping.
However, I'm getting an increasing problem (increasing, probably, because order numbers are growing) with some of these orders downloading as "Partial Payment Received" into Actinic and the problem seems to be the VAT or some portion of it.

It's not every order so I don't think it's a problem with the tax settings themselves but I can't pinpoint what is causing it.
I have about 7 or 8 sat in my pending tab while I decide what to do with them (ultimately, the only 'fix' I've found is to manually adjust the totals...NOT pretty and confusing for the VAT records!)

They vary in which country is affected (I currently have one NZ, one Australia, one Norway and at least one USA amongst others) but it isn't every order from these locations that is affected.
I've checked the products orders too. They all vary wildly and all have "normal" VAT settings in the details with nothing that I can see wrong in their setup.

One of my orders is 'underpaid' (except it's not!) by the VAT on the shipping. One is 'underpaid' by the WHOLE of the orders VAT...one is some random figure that I can't work out where it's coming from! and so on..

It's obviously working ok on the website as the actual paid figures are correct..but there's something amiss in the installation/backend but I can't see it and its intermittency (if that's even a word!) is very confusing.

One for support, I think, but I just wondered if anyone else had experienced anything similar?

[Duncan Rounding]

Certainly one for support to get to the bottom of I think.
You do seem to find 'em don't you?

[TraceyHand]

Certainly one for support to get to the bottom of I think.
You do seem to find 'em don't you?

hmmm
It's not all I do all day, honest!
or maybe it is LOL


Truth is, it's scary how many 'bugs' I find in just one site. Just me, ya know?
Have snapshotted ready for support anyway..fun fun

[Rich Brady]

Not seen anything like that with my parent's store. I'm pretending I know what's causing it, but are they standard products that are effected, or components with additional costs?

How are you differentiating EU countries and none EU? I've populated the EU Members Zone in Business Settings | Tax

Just though it may help to narrow down the field, so sorry if you feel I'm pointing out the obvious.

[TraceyHand]

Not seen anything like that with my parent's store. I'm pretending I know what's causing it, but are they standard products that are effected, or components with additional costs?

Seems to be a mixture, tbh.
What's confusing is that the same products that mess up in these orders have been ordered time and time again before and since, without any problems.
When my snapshot finishes (I think it's crashed on me actually ) I'll make a list of ALL the products in these currently affected orders and see if I can find a common factor in their setup, regardless of history.

How are you differentiating EU countries and none EU? I've populated the EU Members Zone in Business Settings | Tax

I have one tax zone called EU, listing all EU countries, and another called "No tax levied" which lists all of our other shipping destinations (pretty much ROW!)

Just though it may help to narrow down the field, so sorry if you feel I'm pointing out the obvious.

'tis cool
I'm open to all suggestions/ideas!

[Mike Hughes]

Hi Tracey,

I've no experience of this as I'm not live with V9 yet and shouldn't see it as I avoid international orders anyway.

Thinking about it though I can see where problems might arise.

Actinic doesn't 'fix' prices when the order is placed. It continues to update them if an order is opened or adjusted. One area where this causes a problem is if you open an old order with 17.5% VAT as actinic then wants to recalculate everything with the new 15% VAT rate.

It sounds as if there's something in Actinic that's making it re-calculate the order and getting the VAT wrong. You could try changing the country in the address page (and also try changing it back to the correct Country / Possibly after closing and opening the order again, I'm never quite sure when Actinic is going to do it's calculations and update the ststus checks). That will almost certainly make Actinic recalculate everything and hopefully get it right. There's always the possibility though that it will get it wrong but at least it should give some indications of where it's going wrong.

Mike

[TraceyHand]

hmm..ok
Thanks, Mike, I'll do that and see what it does.
they're new orders though, not old ones but I will try forcing Actinic to recalculate and see what the result is.
Meantime, I have Actinic to ctrl/alt/del as my snapshot has crashed it
Oh the jooooooooooooooooooooys of Actinic!!

[TraceyHand]

right, have had a go at that and, while it did come up with a message about tax changing, it didn't actually 'do' anything.
It did alter the VAT due (ie, in the tax tab it stopped saying 'exempt tax' and said 'included vat') but didn't fix anything when I changed it back to the original location again.

Also, it might be interesting to note that ALL these orders have mis-matched "original" and "current" columns in the "Totals" tab.

The "original" calculations are correct but the "current" are not, however, none of these orders have had any changes or adjustments to justify any difference in the 2.
They're just normal "download/process/print off" orders.

About to start snapshot attempt No. 2 (after compacting, of course )

[TraceyHand]

ahh..I just found something that could be causing it although it doesn't really explain why the problem is intermittent and not always only the shipping VAT that is causing the problem.

My shipping zones are set up as UK, EU, USA, Channel Islands, RoW (plus a few others)

Anyway..UK has "Tax applies to shipping" checked and also "Shipping costs include tax"
EU is the same.
USA and Channel Islands both have "Tax applies to shipping" UNchecked and so is "Shipping costs include tax"

However, I just noticed that my "Rest Of World" zone, while having "Tax applies to shipping" UNchecked, the greyed out (and, you would think, irrelevent) "Shipping costs include tax" box was still checked.

Now, this could be a contributing factor but, if it were the entire cause, I would expect shipping on EVERY RoW order to be affected..and ONLY shipping, not products.

Likewise, I know that several of the past orders affected have been USA ones *shrugs*

I'm going to uncheck this box and see what happens but I don't think it's the entire cause of the problem

[TraceyHand]

Right, I've scrutinised the products affected and I think it IS product-based

It's something to do with component settings, "component on separate orderline" and "No orderline for main product" that seems to be doing it.

will report back when I've checked them all and worked out exactly what the problem is

[Rich Brady]

Not the most exciting day you've ever had is it?

[TraceyHand]

Not the most exciting day you've ever had is it?

pmsl
better than having nothing to do, tbh!

right, update and I'm 99% sure I know what is causing the problem however I DO think it's a bug!

It's coming from the "No orderline for main product" checkbox.

For products which have
"Sum of component prices"
"component on separate orderline" checked
"No Orderline for main product" checked

It is calculating incorrect vat exemption on the downloaded order (fortunately, it works ok online so the only evidence, to the customer, is in the paperwork)

It's evident in Actinic in 2 areas
Firstly, the "Totals" tab of the order shows different values in the "Original" and "Current" columns

Secondly, in the orderlines tab, when clicking on "view" to study an orderline closely, the MAIN product orderline is showing no value and you have to click on the second line (the component) to get the totals.

This is NOT the case with other products which are have the "component on separate orderline" UNchecked (although they do still show as 2 lines in this "view") and without the "No orderline for main product" option (which doesn't show without the first option checked anyway)

It's really difficult to explain properly but it's definitely a problem in the way Actinic is calculating the order totals AFTER download
Basically, if you choose "No orderline for main product", the VAT is messed up. Or, should I say, the VAT EXEMPTION is messed up.

This option is quite usual when using permutations/associated products, as we don't want both orderlines showing in the cart/paperwork, so it's a bit of a problem really.

I'm hoping Support, when they get back to me, will see this and be able to confirm/follow up

[Duncan Rounding]

Here endeth the blog of Tracey.



* LOL glad you found the problem.

[Krithika]

Hi Tracey

Thank you for reporting this. This has been logged as a bug and passed to the development team for investigation.

[TraceyHand]

*sigh*

Here comes a complete restructuring of all our products then to avoid using the "No orderline for main product" option

Good thing we don't use stock control on this site so the associated products aren't essential! (just neater!)