Intermittent VAT exempt problem

[TraceyHand]

Thanks, Chris. I expected as much.
I don't know if anyone else had found/reported it before I did but I knew my report would come much too late for 9.0.4.
Shame I hadn't got to the bottom of it earlier, when it first started happening, but I didn't have time then. It's only since BB went that I've had time to sort out a lot of stuff that needed doing on this site.
This turned out to be a serious problem for us, mind you.
Thank GOD we don't use stock control/monitoring on this site so we can ditch the associated products without too many lasting effects (temporarily, til it's fixed, anyway)
It's just the component/ass.d products weight issue that is causing grief now.
The only way round it is to set up independant products, at present.
Meantime, anyone who is

a) registered for VAT
b) ships overseas (non-VAT-charging countries)
c) uses main products with permutations/associated products set up using "No Orderline for Main Product

had better beware!

[cbarling]

Hi Tracey, I'm afraid that you were the first person that we know of to find this bug.

Chris

[TraceyHand]

I need to 'dig' into Actinic more often

or, perhaps, less LOL

[Miranda Stamp]

*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!)

Tracey you're a genius. I knew there was a problem with this and knew it was to do with associated products (which we need for stock control) but never had the time to track down exactly 'why'!

[maroni35]

Tax problem not sorted in 9.04

Well have downloaded 9.04 and can confirm that the issue has not been solved. I have been trying to get this sorted and even acknowledged by Actinic for months. Spoke to them on the the phone (have cover), sent them snapshots and they still can't see. So nice that Tracy was at last able to get them to see the problem.

Excerpt below from email sent beginning of April which I think spells out pretty clearly where the problem was. But nope they can't see it. Support call was 173842

"Dear support,

We have an issue with tax VAT showing an incorrect positive value within the Access database for overseas non-VAT countries when products with components are purchased.

Enclosed is a a snapshot with the problem highlighted for orders placed in Switzerland.

The purchaser sees the correct information when buying with tax deducted. The order is downloaded and Actinic also shows a VAT tax deducted price.

In the Access database for the Order Detail table then the Tax 1 field shows a negative value for normal straighforward products. However for products that have components, the Tax 1 field shows a positive value. The Tax Total Cost 1 in the Order table shows a correct negative value for all the line items."

Frustrated as I still have no confirmation from Actinic that this is being looked at for 9.5 or 10.0000

David

[TraceyHand]

I would HOPE that Actinic are seeing this as a pretty serious problem but I do think that it was pinned down (cause and effect) too late for 9.0.4 which, I believe, was already in its very early beta when I posted this.
If it isn't looked at in 9.0.5, I would very much like to know why not!

[TraceyHand]

AAAARRRRRGGGGHHHH (censored version!!!!!!!)

This bug is SERIOUS
OK, so I've had to remove all associated products and use simple choices for our whole catalogue to get round Actinic classing all my components/permutations/asstd. prods. as zero rated, which it was doing in error.

To add insult to injury, it's doing it for EVERY component, whether it has an associated product or not.
This means that add 'add on' components (extras added to an original product) are being given zero rated status and messing up my non-VAT overseas orders in the same way as the original problem.

I can't remove all my optional extras for products, that's ridiculous!

Orders are fine when they first download/complete but, as soon as I open an order, it messes it up again, even if I don't actually edit anything (and it's unrealistic to expect us NOT to open orders to look at them, even after completion!)

You cannot begin to imagine how annoyed I am about this now.
If it's not fixed in 9.0.5, I'd like a damn good reason why not. It'd better come soon (9.0.5 with fix, that is)

[TraceyHand]

oh..and while I'm ranting (yes, I'm ranting, can you tell? ) this SERIOUSLY messes up my tax summary reports too as it's telling me I have zero rated sales when I don't.
It'd be fine if I didn't sell anything zero rated, I could recalculate it myself then, but I do and this is just mixing everything up and making a joke of the whole thing

and breathe....

[Benjamin Dyer]

Hi Tracey,

I appreciate this is highly frustrating. I want to assure you we are taking this very seriously and currently working on the problem. As soon as we have a fix it will be going into the next maintenance release, which we plan to be rather small, targeted and available quickly.

Ben

[TraceyHand]

ok, thanks Ben
It's not frustration so much as disbelief, tbh
Not only is it messing with nearly every non-EU order we have (which is a lot!) but it's also messing up every tax report we produce.
Will gladly test any fixes you have!
Cheers

[Benjamin Dyer]

Will gladly test any fixes you have!

Great, I'll make sure I get a test build to you to play with as soon as we have one.