Tax is per line, not per invoice
Businesses routinely sell items that attract different treatment on the same document — a hotel bill carrying a tourism levy on accommodation and standard VAT on a shop item, or a distributor invoicing exempt and standard-rated goods together. Tax is therefore applied per line, with each line carrying its own tax rows, rather than a single rate stamped across the invoice.
Several taxes, at the same time
More than one tax can apply within one business, one outlet, and even one document. Each is configured against the items and outlets it applies to, and each posts to its own liability account — so what you owe each authority is visible without separating it by hand at period end.
- Value added tax, goods and services tax, or sales tax, at whatever rates apply
- City, tourism, consumption and similar levies alongside the headline tax
- Exempt, zero-rated and standard-rated items on the same document
- Separate liability accounts per tax and per authority
Withholding tax
Where your customers withhold tax at source, it is handled at document level, because the customer withholds against the invoice total rather than against a line. The withheld amount posts as a receivable against the tax authority rather than being written off, so the credit remains tracked until you recover it.
Preparing returns
Because every tax amount posts to the ledger against the transaction that generated it, the figures for a return are a report rather than an exercise. You can see what was charged, what was collected and what is outstanding for any period, with drill-down to the underlying documents.
- Tax charged and collected by period, by tax type
- Drill-down from a total to the individual documents
- Multi-currency transactions carried at their transaction rate
Where we are honest about the limits
Configurable tax is not the same thing as certified compliance. A growing number of countries mandate electronic invoicing cleared through a government platform, or certified fiscal hardware, and each of those is a specific integration rather than a setting. BusinessSensor will calculate, post and report your tax correctly anywhere; where your country runs a clearance mandate, ask us about that country before you buy. We would rather tell you up front than sell you a promise.