Change VAT rate - any likely issues?

[hairydog]

It looks as if the UK will have a change in VAT rate today, probably to come into effect within a few hours.

 

Changing the standard rate of VAT should be simple enough, but will it have any impact on previous transaction records?

 

Has anyone researched how a change in tax rate works? I know I haven't!

[FIMBLE]

it should not as they are stored in the database and not updated.

Be the same thing for products and their prices.

Nic

[xwave]

Well its gonna mess a lot up.

 

OK you can alter the VAT % from 17.5% to 15% easy enough, but for prices like £9.99 will end up like £9.77 / or £9.78

and £89.00 will turn into £87.11 !

 

What an absolute mess in the store!

 

And as we know most prices to the retailers are actually increasing (due to things like transport costs, the dollar rate, and many things made in the far east and bought in the dollar, whether directly or from UK distributors) and those on tight margins anyway, many of these items for us are required to be left at £9.99 etc.

 

For us there are fewer items that in real terms need reducing, and I would rather be in the position of needing to alter 200 product prices downwards, than 800 product prices upwards, and leave figures looking nice looking, like £89.00 not £87.11

 

So, is there any script that can be run in PHPMYADMIN to alter product Prices (ie effectively multiply them by 1.021739 (if my sums are correct)) which would leave me a lot less work! (And the same for SPECIALS prices)

 

PLEASE HELP!!

[♥geoffreywalton]

Try looking at the mysql update command.

 

A good mysql reference site is www.w3schools.com.

[xwave]

Thanks, I have been looking and come up with my modified command

 

UPDATE products SET products_price = products_price *1.021739(15,4);

 

Im a newbie at this, so would apprciate any advice.

 

 

My prices are set to 4 decimal places (15,4) so should the above work;

do i need the (15,4)

 

or should it be:

UPDATE products SET products_price = products_price *1.021739decimal(15,4);

 

and I just run in the query box? Sorry for my ignorance.

 

Thanks in advance.

[xwave]

It looks as if the UK will have a change in VAT rate today, probably to come into effect within a few hours.

 

Changing the standard rate of VAT should be simple enough, but will it have any impact on previous transaction records?

 

Has anyone researched how a change in tax rate works? I know I haven't!

 

Hairydog, sorry to hijack your thread.

Previous transactions will be OK, other issues may be on your invoices, and issues like Ive mentioned above if you show your prices with Tax/VAT if your store is set up as ours is.

[♥stubbsy]

OK you can alter the VAT % from 17.5% to 15% easy enough, but for prices like £9.99 will end up like £9.77 / or £9.78

and £89.00 will turn into £87.11 !

 

I' ve been pondering exactly the same problem, most of our suppliers are either decreasing margins or increasing prices as the majority if our stuff is imported, so prices are going up. I have around 4000 products that i will probably leave the same price as a result of the subsequent increases so need a way to keep the same retails but reduce the VAT element. BTW the vast majority of these items are discounted so yep, i need to take that into account as well.

 

Be interested to hear how anyone gets on with your suggestion

 

Dave

[♥yesudo]

My understanding is that the new UK VAT rate is effective from 1st December:

 

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/pbr2008/measure1.htm

 

In regards to making the price look pretty - surely the more important element is cheaper prices to encourage your potential customers to buy.

 

If you concentrate on making prices look nice then you will be undercut by your competitors whom pass on the full VAT reduction to their customers.

 

To apply the new tax rate you can either amend the current banding you have set-up down from 17.5% to 15% or create a new tax banding and use a mysql

query to move all the products onto the new tax banding.

[xwave]

My understanding is that the new UK VAT rate is effective from 1st December:

 

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/pbr2008/measure1.htm

 

In regards to making the price look pretty - surely the more important element is cheaper prices to encourage your potential customers to buy.

 

If you concentrate on making prices look nice then you will be undercut by your competitors whom pass on the full VAT reduction to their customers.

 

To apply the new tax rate you can either amend the current banding you have set-up down from 17.5% to 15% or create a new tax banding and use a mysql

query to move all the products onto the new tax banding.

 

1. Yes the New UK VAT rate is effective from the 1st December

 

2. Regarding Pretty prices, I completely understand your comments, but when your margins are already very low, and it is a fact that prices are going up (for our products), then for also those reasons most smaller items will need to stay at the current pricing, and we also prefer to have reasonable looking prices which will still be very competitive, and still equal to the best prices out there (without making a loss). We always try to pass good savings on to customers, and when neccesary will reduce prices, but for the sake of a few percent, and the current cost increasing its a fact that most of our lower priced items will need to remain the same. I think Dave understands, as will many in a similar retail product sectors.

It may be different if we were selling cars for example, but we are not.

 

3. For us, the way I can see the 'easy' way round is by running a query ammending all the product prices, and then reducing the ones (generally higher value) to pass on the savings where appropriate. Therefore I still would apppreciate if my code is good to run (need help there), rather than attempting it trial and error on Monday 1st December!

 

Many thanks

[WS Evolution]

Thanks, I have been looking and come up with my modified command

 

UPDATE products SET products_price = products_price *1.021739(15,4);

 

Im a newbie at this, so would apprciate any advice.

 

 

My prices are set to 4 decimal places (15,4) so should the above work;

do i need the (15,4)

 

or should it be:

UPDATE products SET products_price = products_price *1.021739decimal(15,4);

 

and I just run in the query box? Sorry for my ignorance.

 

Thanks in advance.

 

 

Would it not be better to round to 2 decimal places so that you don't get any strange results when applying other discounts and coupons.

 

UPDATE products SET products_price = Round((products_price/ 1.175) * 1.15,2)

 

I don't know if this works or not, but I was going to try this or similar on a few of my sites.

 

I will be testing on a demo product table first!

[Guest]

Well we have decided to keep all prices as they are but obviously change VAT to 15%. I can change to 15% no problem but it will reduce gross price. So I think I need to increase net price to +2.% for all products then change the VAT rate. Sound like it will work? Anyone know the best way to increase all net prices? Or am I missing something?

 

Thanks

[Guest]

Well we have decided to keep all prices as they are but obviously change VAT to 15%. I can change to 15% no problem but it will reduce gross price. So I think I need to increase net price to +2.% for all products then change the VAT rate. Sound like it will work? Anyone know the best way to increase all net prices? Or am I missing something?

 

Thanks

 

OK just to make it clear. If you plan on sticking with the same gross price that the customer generally sees.

 

Change the products to 15% VAT and increase the net price by 2.17%

 

This will give you the same gross price as before.

 

You can either use phpadmin to add 2.17% to all net prices. If anyone knows the command please could you advise.

 

I just used oscommerce Product Manager to do this by selecting all products then changing price by adding this percentage.

 

Hope this helps alot of you out there.

[xswiftyx]

OK just to make it clear. If you plan on sticking with the same gross price that the customer generally sees.

 

Change the products to 15% VAT and increase the net price by 2.17%

 

This will give you the same gross price as before.

 

You can either use phpadmin to add 2.17% to all net prices. If anyone knows the command please could you advise.

 

I just used oscommerce Product Manager to do this by selecting all products then changing price by adding this percentage.

 

Hope this helps alot of you out there.

Don't fancy going through 1000+ products to change the price, Will try the product manager let you know how I get on. or a phpadmin to add 2.17% to all net prices would be better if anyone knows it

[xswiftyx]

Kartdemon - How did you select all products in Product manager? Only seem to be able to select all in each catagory....? rather than every product in the database

[Guest]

Kartdemon - How did you select all products in Product manager? Only seem to be able to select all in each catagory....? rather than every product in the database

 

Hi,

 

Just select the magnifying glass at the top then leave the fields as they are and click on continue. It will list all your products. Then select them all.

 

Sorted.

[GemRock]

if you want to pocket the 2.5% (its not illegal) or want to have the price displayed as it is now, i'd not use any of the suggestions above. instaed i'd once and for all modify the site so that it displays net price the same as gross price (in admin, at shop front you dont show net price but only show vat inclusive price), but calculate vat according to the rate set at admin, which means you'd pay 2.5% less vat to the taxman, or in other words, you increase price by 2.5%. few people would notice this 2.5% difference. when it changes back to 17.5% you just need to update it at admin which anyone can do.

Thats what I have been busy doing since Monday for site owners who want to go this way.

 

Ken

[FIMBLE]

what is the problem with reducing the VAT to 15% ? Non pretty prices?

[GemRock]

...use phpadmin to add 2.17% to all net prices. If anyone knows the command please could you advise...

it is:

Update products set products_price = products_price * 1.0217

 

Not tested.

 

Ken

[diy]

I believe that it is not a good policy NOT to lower your prices to reflect the new VAT, you can easily (?) increase them in 2-3 months but anyway!!!

Suppose someone is not using a tax class (gross and net prices are the same and prices displayed with tax is set to false ) is there a way to make all products belong to a tax class ???

 

PS As for your case (UK shops) I would suggest to first deflate the prices (update the prices by dividing with 1.175) and then inflate the prices (update the prices by multiplying with 1.15) and as I said leve there for a while and increase the prices with new deliveries (BTW is there a way to have somewhere buying prices??)

[xswiftyx]

All done - kept same prices but now 15% VAT. Just change tax rate to 15.000. Then download Product manager. Select all products and change price to +2.17%. All done!. Thanks to kartdemon for your help

[Guest]

got a link to Product Manager ?

never heard of it before is it a contrib ?

[xwave]

got a link to Product Manager ?

never heard of it before is it a contrib ?

OK dave, for you're and others info, I have succesfully run the following in PHPMYADMIN as SQL commands, and it works for OUR Store.

 

1. Put site DOWN FOR MAINTENANCE (in your /admin (Configuration -Site maintenence)

2. BACKUP DATABASE

3. BACKUP WEBSITE

4. In phpmyadmin run the following SQL queries:

 

a. To update products_price:

UPDATE products SET products_price = products_price *1.0217

 

b. To update Specials (First check to see if in same table as mine - ie 'specials_new_products_price')

UPDATE specials SET specials_new_products_price = specials_new_products_price *1.0217

 

5. In /Admin goto

Locations/Taxes

Tax Rates .... Then edit and change old 17.5% rate to 15.0%

 

6. Put Site Back Online (take off DOWN FOR MAINTENANCE)

7. Test.

 

Works for me!

Done in seconds (minutes at most)

:-)

[xwave]

UPDATE:

 

To be more accurate, and avoid loosing or gaining a few pennies: use

 

UPDATE products SET products_price = products_price *1.0217391

 

UPDATE specials SET specials_new_products_price = specials_new_products_price *1.0217391

[burt]

And we wonder why the economy is so shit. :rolleyes:

[FIMBLE]

thank God its not more than 2% they would be found hanging in their garages, i think its pathetic