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Add location attribute to work items

Alexander Adolf

April 13, 2013 16:34

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 In many jurisdictions around the world, the place where a service is rendered or goods are delivered to, determines the applicability of value-added tax. To produce a valid invoice under such a jurisdiction, it is hence required to not only clearly state the date of delivery, but also the location. This is also and especially important for cross-border business.

Up to now, I state the location in the prose of the item's description, but that is a manual thing, and tends to be forgotten. ;-)

I would therefore like to suggest adding a location attribute to each work item. An example how this could be integrated into the UI is shown in the attached picture. Oh, and of course I would also want a new ItemLocation variable for use in templates, invoices, and other reports.

Screen Shot 2013-04-13 at 18.20.03 .png

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6 comments

• 0
  
  Alexander Adolf January 08, 2014 20:38

  No thoughts? Ok, it's a data model change, but still wouldn't seem excessive? Thanks in advance.

• 0
  
  Rob Sherrard - Imageer January 09, 2014 18:33

  Such a feature could be useful if the Location were a user-definable listbox with a default location, and each location were linked to the tax rate appropriate for that location.

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  Alexander Adolf January 09, 2014 21:24

  My needs for the location would be to say e.g. "Your Berlin office", or "XYZ premises Frankfurt". That is to say, these would not be linked to different taxes as far as I am concerned. I could do with an opaque string.

  To my experience, taxes are typically linked to countries, or to federal states within a country. So for me a tax location would e.g. be "Germany", or "US/California". But then, I will likely already have configured the respective tax rates in the preferences? And then I can already set a per-item tax rate. So to me having tax rates automagically applied based on location would seem equally redundant and confusing to me.

  I would just be asking for an opaque string.

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  Rob Sherrard - Imageer January 09, 2014 22:13

  Oranged, don't let my suggestion stand in the way of fulfilling @Adolf's needs.

  As you know, here in the US neighboring counties can have different sales tax rates within the same state, and deliveries made out of state are not subject to tax. Location-aware tax rates could simplify preparation of invoices by businesses delivering to out-of-local-area clients.

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  Alexander Adolf January 11, 2014 13:00

  @Rob, the longer I think about your suggestion, the more sense it seems to make. A few more thoughts...

  Per-county tax rates must be a nightmare. I truly feel for you. If this were to be automated in Studiometry, I guess there would need to be some sort of database with all the tax rates? I don't think that would be realistically manageable for a software vendor. On the other hand: I assume that you have created all the tax rates you currently need in the preferences? If that were the case, I think the list of taxes you have configured, would be your database.

  Here comes the idea: Let's also add a location/area attribute (opaque string) to each configured tax rate. If and when the location attribute (opaque string) of a work item is not empty, and matches one of the tax locations, the respective tax rate is applied to the work item. There should of course also be some indication in the UI that the tax rate for this work item has been auto-set. Auto-completion could add the tax locations to the list for the work item location field to foster correct matching.

  I think this would solve both, your and my problem? I can enter my descriptive text and have it appear on the invoice without affecting the tax rate (as I will never enter any tax locations). Whenever you get a client in a new county/state, you would add the applicable tax rates in preferences (with location), and whenever you then add a new work item with a matching location, the tax rate you have configured would be applied to that work item.

  And finally, for the faint of heart, there should probably be a global switch in preferences to disable location-based tax rate setting for work items altogether.

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  Rob Sherrard - Imageer January 11, 2014 21:43

  Happily, my client base is primarily within one tax jurisdiction, so it's not an immense issue for my current business. However, the point of delivery/service can easily be overlooked in preparing invoices, so a location field would be a helpful reminder, and if it could be linked to the default tax rates already stored in Preferences, Categories & Rates it would be a boon. (And avoid the embarrassment of charging the wrong tax rate to a client to whom it didn't apply.)

  I would never expect Oranged to provide or maintain a database of current tax rates for worldwide tax venues. (It's hard enough to keep track of rate changes just within my state.) That's why my original comment to this suggestion proposed a user-definable listbox for the various location tax rates, with a default to the local area tax rate.

  The rest of the proposal would be workable for me, and those users happy with the current setup could opt not to turn on location awareness.