Changing VAT rate

The standard rate of VAT is reduced from 17.5% to 15% with effect from Monday 1st of December 2008. Any work that needs to be carried out on Kontrolit web sites will vary depending on your circumstances on what version you are running. A summary of the main scenarios follows:

Customer with either zero rated goods or not VAT registered

You are not charging VAT so there is no action required.

Customer that sell mainly business to business and advertise product excluding VAT

You will need to change your standard VAT rate from 17.5% to 15% on midnight of December the 1st. You do not need to worry about old orders now totalling up incorrectly as the system is designed in such a way that historical information will remain unaffected.

Customer that sell mainly to consumers and advertise product including VAT

You need to make a decision on whether you will want to pass the VAT reduction on to your customers or not. This decision is down to you as a merchant. You may want to carry out a trial on a sample of products to work out how it will look. For example if most of your products are low value items in the region of £10 an under then nice rounded figures for pricing can be destroyed if you reduce your prices.

What happens next?

Kontrolit.net staff will be contacting all partners and customers running shop web sites in the next few days to make sure everything will go along smoothly. In addition we will be offering our services to carry out any changes for you at that time. Don’t forget an online shop is open 24x7 so although it is easy to make the change you still need to make the change at the right time!