Question for Interspire Users

ICEY · Dec 19, 2009

I am just wondering if anyone who sells to a worldwide marketplace has found a work around for the fact that it doesn't deduct VAT for those customers outside of the EU?

I'm not prepared to ignore the fact that it doesn't deduct the VAT. I'm also not prepared to show the pricing minus VAT as that isn't normal practice in the UK. Also it isn't practical to create manual invoices for all these orders and so after all this time it seems that I've reached a critical point in deciding what to do with my interspire sites.

I'm sure I can't be the only person in the UK usuing Interspire that sells to the US, Canada, Australia and so on who is having this problem with the VAT elements not working?

Interspire won't sort out this problem for some reason, despite informing them numerous times that the Interspire software is not fit for the UK marketplace until they have sorted out this basic legal requirement.

Ideally as I like the software and have invested heavily into the site, I'd really like to be able to continue to use it but cannot if there isn't a workaround for the VAT issues that doesn't involve showing the prices EX-VAT, creating manual invoices or ignorning the fact that VAT is charged to non-EU customers.

Flying Hippy · Dec 21, 2009

Hi Icey,

What percentage are your customers from outside UK ? also have you got a link to your site or can you PM me. I also use interspire.

Christiane · Dec 21, 2009

I haven't got an interpsire shopping cart yet, but I've been looking at it for a while. I'm almost sure I read something about that in their forum, along the lines that you had to create a tax ''profile'' for each country.

bluedreamer · Dec 22, 2009

With Interspire's cart, like many others, you have to set up tax rates for each country where you want to apply tax to, so it only applies tax to the countries you tell it to.

The problem you have with displaying prices including VAT is that it generally only applies to UK/EU - some countries you might not need to apply an taxation to, in which case displaying prices inc VAT might be misleading to some international customers.

Interspire does in fact have a facility to allow you to display prices with or without your standard tax rate added. This is set under the Tax settings, for each country's tax setting.

ICEY · Dec 22, 2009

Thanks for the replies.

I have the territories/countries set up, I understand that, it was a pita to do but each was set up individually.

As far as I'm aware in the UK prices shown to consumer have to show VAT. This is where the problems start - because if you show VAT on the site, the invoices don't deduct the VAT for orders outside of the EU.

Yes I agree it will ADD on tax if the price is shown without VAT but my understanding is that prices must show the VAT inclusive price.

I want to show the price inclusive of VAT (which I believe is a legal requirement), and then I want the software to deduct VAT if a customer is outside of the EU.

Basically it needs to work in reverse - right now it can add tax on, what we need it to do is deduct the tax where applicable.

What I need to know is whether this can work in line with UK tax regulations which is to display pricing including VAT and deduct VAT during checkout and before payment for those that are outside of the EU.

bluedreamer · Dec 22, 2009

I haven't used Interspires cart but with their other scripts most of the output is handled by various template tags, so you should be able to find one that controls price display in the appropriate templates and modify to show price+tax. Failing that it's probably a case of diving into the PHP code that outputs prices and modifying that.

ICEY · Dec 22, 2009

bluedreamer said:
I haven't used Interspires cart but with their other scripts most of the output is handled by various template tags, so you should be able to find one that controls price display in the appropriate templates and modify to show price+tax. Failing that it's probably a case of diving into the PHP code that outputs prices and modifying that.

Believe me we have tried everything, I'm now left with a site that shows some of the products with VAT and some without! I don't think that it is easy to bolt on to Interspire. From what I can gather we seem to get one bit fixed and then it breaks another. Really frustrating because apart from it not being VAT compliant it is an excellent package.

bluedreamer · Dec 22, 2009

So you couldn't find a template tag or modify anything else to suit your needs?

zookx · Dec 22, 2009

We've found Interspire to be a great looking cart but much as you have, we've found it seems to be let down by poor support and ongoing problems with integrating postage and VAT.

ICEY · Dec 22, 2009

bluedreamer said:
So you couldn't find a template tag or modify anything else to suit your needs?

No. Basically we (well not me personally) have tried many different things but for some reason if we can get one thing working, then it seems to have a bit of a knock on effect and something else doesn't.

In my category page, some of the new products show prices with VAT and some don't but there is no rhyme or reason, several that were added on the same day are showing the correct price.

It doesn't seem easily customisable imho.

ICEY · Dec 22, 2009

zookx said:
We've found Interspire to be a great looking cart but much as you have, we've found it seems to be let down by poor support and ongoing problems with integrating postage and VAT.

We just charge a flat rate postage so haven't had those issues but do know of them.

In a way it is good to know that we aren't alone in our frustrations with Interspire's support and their apparent lack of care that they are breaching UK tax regulations.

I can't tell you how many times I have contacted them over this issue, there is no way they can say it is unknown.

alanc · Dec 23, 2009

ICEY said:
We just charge a flat rate postage so haven't had those issues but do know of them.

If the parcel contains a mixture of items with different VAT rates (e.g. books and non-books), then the P&P charge should apply VAT at a rate pro-rata (in proportion to) the VAT of the contents. Interspire does not implement this properly.

I didn't know about the VAT problem raised by the OP. That's a major bug in my books, as I've been looking at Interspire.

alanc · Dec 23, 2009

My Interspire-loving friends assure me that the OP's problem has been mentioned many times on the Interspire forum and that big tax changes are due in the next version.

ICEY · Dec 23, 2009

alanc said:
If the parcel contains a mixture of items with different VAT rates (e.g. books and non-books), then the P&P charge should apply VAT at a rate pro-rata (in proportion to) the VAT of the contents. Interspire does not implement this properly.

I didn't know about the VAT problem raised by the OP. That's a major bug in my books, as I've been looking at Interspire.

We charge just one rate of VAT hence the flat rate postage.

alanc said:
My Interspire-loving friends assure me that the OP's problem has been mentioned many times on the Interspire forum and that big tax changes are due in the next version.

They have only just release a version and when the update wasn't in I wrote and asked if and when it would be updated and was told that it *may* be in a later version.

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Question for Interspire Users

ICEY

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ICEY

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ICEY

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ICEY

ICEY

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