GST/VAT status

[Iain Fogg]

I've scoured the archives to try to understand the level of support in
OfBiz for GST/VAT.

I've spent quite a while browsing source from SVN 425970 (approx. 27
July 2006), and I get the impression you can do it, provided you work
withing certain limitations (this isn't bad, BTW).

Here's what I've done to try to validate the support:

1) Create a new RateProductType for GST
2) Create a GST product category (or more than one if needed - in my
application, everything is subject to the same GST rate)
3) Allocate all products subject to GST to the category (all in my case)
2) Add a RateProduct to the VAT Tax Authority, ensuring this is tagged
with the GST product category

Is it safe to say that this approach works if product prices are stored
ex-GST? In this case, OfBiz treats the GST tax adjustment as a "Other"
adjustment and proceeds accordingly. Does anyone know a way to use
GST-inclusive product prices, and have the applications (ordering,
invoicing, accounting, etc) correctly report the GST? As far as I can
tell, this doesn't work, but would like to be educated otherwise.

I realise I'll need to modify the default applications for my
environment (in Australia) to support legally mandated reporting
requirements, but are there any "gotchas" from anyone who's already been
down this path?

 From what I can tell, Purchase Orders don't handle GST. By that I mean
that if I raise a PO for a supplier, the GST/VAT component of the cost
is not tracked, reported, or accounted for. Again, please tell me if
I've got this wrong.

I'd love to hear from anyone in Australia (or EU where the VAT is
somewhat similar) whose already been down this path and bridged any gaps.

Cheers, Iain




--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.1.394 / Virus Database: 268.10.7/409 - Release Date: 4/08/2006

[David E Jones-2]

Hopefully some others will be able to reply with their experiences.  
You might want to search back in the old mailing list archives (on  
lists.ofbiz.org) as some of this has been discussed there.

As for the general approach: we keep prices without VAT, and they can  
have 3 (or even 4) decimal digits to make sure the VAT calculation is  
correct after rounding. For reporting requirements (invoices, order  
confirmations, etc) the report takes care of showing the price with  
or without taxes, regardless of whether or not they are a VAT tax,  
according to the TaxAuthority settings.

At the minute this is not done in many places. In other words the  
underlying functionality is there for all of this but not many (I  
haven't looked for a while though) of the reports and pages have been  
updated to support this. They do typically show the tax as an  
adjustment, which many tax authorities require, but I don't think  
many places show the amounts with taxes added in, which is also  
required by tax authorities for VAT style taxes, especially to  
consumers.

-David


On Aug 5, 2006, at 9:31 AM, Iain Fogg wrote:

> I've scoured the archives to try to understand the level of support  
> in OfBiz for GST/VAT.
>
> I've spent quite a while browsing source from SVN 425970 (approx.  
> 27 July 2006), and I get the impression you can do it, provided you  
> work withing certain limitations (this isn't bad, BTW).
>
> Here's what I've done to try to validate the support:
>
> 1) Create a new RateProductType for GST
> 2) Create a GST product category (or more than one if needed - in  
> my application, everything is subject to the same GST rate)
> 3) Allocate all products subject to GST to the category (all in my  
> case)
> 2) Add a RateProduct to the VAT Tax Authority, ensuring this is  
> tagged with the GST product category
>
> Is it safe to say that this approach works if product prices are  
> stored ex-GST? In this case, OfBiz treats the GST tax adjustment as  
> a "Other" adjustment and proceeds accordingly. Does anyone know a  
> way to use GST-inclusive product prices, and have the applications  
> (ordering, invoicing, accounting, etc) correctly report the GST? As  
> far as I can tell, this doesn't work, but would like to be educated  
> otherwise.
>
> I realise I'll need to modify the default applications for my  
> environment (in Australia) to support legally mandated reporting  
> requirements, but are there any "gotchas" from anyone who's already  
> been down this path?
>
> From what I can tell, Purchase Orders don't handle GST. By that I  
> mean that if I raise a PO for a supplier, the GST/VAT component of  
> the cost is not tracked, reported, or accounted for. Again, please  
> tell me if I've got this wrong.
>
> I'd love to hear from anyone in Australia (or EU where the VAT is  
> somewhat similar) whose already been down this path and bridged any  
> gaps.
>
> Cheers, Iain
>
>
>
>
> --
> No virus found in this outgoing message.
> Checked by AVG Free Edition.
> Version: 7.1.394 / Virus Database: 268.10.7/409 - Release Date:  
> 4/08/2006
>