Solved

Feature Request: Integration of Taxamo assure into the checkout for UK companies selling to EU

amanda_drury
Tourist
9 0 63

I'm not sure how to put in a features request - please can someone tell me if this way doesn't work.

I have been looking into how as a small business I can improve the experience for my EU customers of purchasing from myself, post Brexit as a UK business.

Royal Mail have recommended a company called Taxamo assure which acts as a IOSS. They calculate and charge the customer VAT and pay it to the EU on our behalf without us having to fill in the VAT return. They charge £2 for each transaction. It sounds like the perfect solution but unless you are a shopify plus business one cannot get access to the Shopify checkout and do the API integration. The irony is if you are a shopify plus customer you will be big enough and it will be more cost effective to set up your own IOSS.

I have spoken to support about this who have suggested that I put in a feature request. So here it is. If more people can also express an interest in this feature it may have more chance of being implemented and go somewhere to ease the Brexit headache of doing business with the EU.

 

 

Accepted Solution (1)
Shay
Shopify Staff
2780 440 566

This is an accepted solution.

Hi @Christian48 

I understand that you don't have Registration Based Taxes setup on your store at this time. If you are selling to the UK/EU this will be an important step for you to complete. Depending on your tax setup you had on your store when we rolled this feature out, you may not have been automatically opted in for it. If that is the case you will want to contact our live support and let them know that you need to enable "Registration Based Taxes" on your store. From there, they can reach out to the appropriate support teams internally to get that feature enabled (Feel free to share this forum post for context). You can also see more information on this here: Manage Your UK Taxes

To contact our live support please follow this link: Shopify Help Center - Contact Support, sign into your store account, search for your issue and use the contact support button at the bottom of the search results to see all our live support options. 

As @Savvy_Paul shared in their screenshots, registration based taxes allows you to provide your tax registration ID for the appropriate countries/states/provinces you sell to and uses our automated tax system to check the appropriate tax and apply it at the checkout. After July 1st, this will be updated to include your OSS/IOSS registration information to capture taxes on orders that meet the specific threshold requirements put in place by Brexit. 

In regards to the integration of an external services to work as your intermediary for businesses using the IOSS model, I want to reiterate that your feedback here is being shared with the appropriate teams.

I know that while IOSS registration is not mandatory, the simplification of the checkout experience it provides is definitely the ideal option for businesses with a lot of sales to the UK/EU. At this time, because IOSS is not a legal requirement Shopify does not provide a built in integration for an IOSS intermediary. 

Based on the information that has been shared in this thread, Taxamo does offer an integration solution but that is restricted to our PLUS store plans as it requires access to the checkout API. If there are other options available for this integration, the ability to offer it is entirely in Taxamo's, or any external providers, hands to create. They have full access to our API documentation and can develop and list their app in our app store. If they require any support from our developers, that is something handled by a team outside of my own and I am not able to provide additional insight into that process on the back end. Shopify does not control the integration of third party apps and services and if you would like to have features provided by a third party company (Like Taxamo), you will need to contact them directly to ask them to create a suitable app integration. 

I am going to mark this response as the "Solution" to make it easier for other merchants to see the information shared here. Please feel free to continue sharing your feedback and I will answer any questions I am able to. 

Thank you!

-Shay

Shay | Social Care @ Shopify 
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Replies 360 (360)
Candi_Q
Excursionist
17 0 17

Hi @LauraECY 

Thank you for your quick response!

Okay, sounds pretty good so far.

I am already on Royal Mail Click and Drop but just doing pay as you go. Hopefully this won't be a problem.

I thought commercial invoices were optional but I will look into doing this as never done one before.

Seems like this is the only viable option for a brand new and very small business.

Thanks again and I hope it goes smoothly for you!

Candice

Boo14
Excursionist
11 0 10

Thanks for your updates, Laura. They have been very helpful! I have just uploaded our IOSS number from CBIT today and am on a 'chat' with Shopify at the moment to make sure that all is set up correctly. Having read your latest message, it looks as though we are going to have to change from Drop and Go, too! I will have to look into this now. Good luck, everyone!

LauraECY
Excursionist
32 0 42

Me again with an update on our experience with CBIT. I had quite a bit of difficulty uploading sales data and contacted support for assistance. They provided an excel document which did help as it had some explanations of what was required for each column. The csv format is quite tricky but I got there eventually by creating the data set and concatenating it. I then copied this into a new sheet to upload and that worked. 

I fed back about some confusion on the FAQ page regarding product upload and IOSS data upload. Today I see the explanatory information that really helped has been added to the FAQ page with clarification about what is required for each different process.

I am finding CBIT to be very responsive and am impressed with the speed at which they are adapting information. I am eager for the app though!

Hermine_Makangu
Tourist
5 0 5

CBIT are very helpful once you contact them especially once your details are on the system.

I guess the registration depends on the demands in the country but from different forums I noticed that the average was about 2 to 5 days. If it takes longer, there may be a problem with the inormation submitted to them, so it is better to contact them.

I also had issues uploading my first file it was due to the way in which the date is written in the UK versus their system. I have a dummy example of what worked for us, it is always better to check with CBIT.

Lastly something we found useful to calculate VAT for sales that happened before we got the IOSS number: https://www.thevatcalculator.com/eu-vat-calculator/ It is very good, they calculate added VAT as well as included VAT.

 

IossNumberTrackingNumberTransactionDateSalesAmountVatAmountSourceCountryDestinationCountryServiceIsCorrectionOriginalTransactionDateOrderNumber
IM000000001ZET497KD91092021-07-0811120GBBE00 K7HJZB
Candi_Q
Excursionist
17 0 17

Hi @Hermine_Makangu 

This is really helpful. Thank you! Do you have a contact number for Crossborderit? I could only find the support email which I emailed and haven't heard back.

Thanks in advance.

Best,

Candice

 

Hermine_Makangu
Tourist
5 0 5

Hi @Candi_Q 

I don't have their contact number but they were very responsive with this email: support@crossborderit.com 

Candi_Q
Excursionist
17 0 17

Hi @Dbaca 

 

I still don't have an ISSO number and have not heard back from anyone at Crossborderit after emailing the support email address. I'm a bit surprised as everyone else seems to have had great support thus far.

Can you shed any light on this?

 

Thanks,

Candice

Dbaca
Pathfinder
166 0 42
He tax system has been down for a few days which has caused some delays. We are working to get the numbers together when it is back up and running.
Christian48
Excursionist
19 0 14

Hi @Dbaca , I'm still confused about the .csv file. Does the sales amount figure include shipping? Reason I ask is VAT is charged on shipping too.

Dbaca
Pathfinder
166 0 42

I hope this was solved.. Email me if not. info@crossborderit.com

 

Curb_Wear
Excursionist
14 0 17

Thanks for sharing this. When uploading the orders, do you convert to EURO? I charge in Pounds but it requires the sale and VAT amount to be in EURO.

Also pricing, it starts from €1 per shipment, have you found it to be this price for most of your orders? 
Dbaca
Pathfinder
166 0 42
I can Answer this direct from Crossborderit. The price per transaction is 1€ for IOSS.
pandroid
Visitor
2 0 0

Hi @Dbaca,

The pricing information you share here contradicts the response I got from your support@ email address.

I asked:

Let's say I ship a package that contains £20 worth of goods and the shipping cost is £7.50 to a destination that has a 21% VAT rate.
 
So, goods and shipping total = £27.50
21% VAT charged on that total of goods + shipping total = £5.76
Total charged to the customer = £33.26
 
What is the cost of clearing this package through your service?
 
Is it:  1 EUR + 5% of £5.76 (VAT charged for this order?) = 1 EUR + £0.288
(plus the monthly fee of 19.99 EUR?)

And the response I got was a one-line:

This looks sound as a calculation.

So, which one is correct - 1 EUR per package you are advertising here or 1 EUR + 5% fees on VAT charged that your email support folks tell us?

Thanks.

LauraECY
Excursionist
32 0 42

3 weeks in and our first IOSS orders have been delivered to customers. Sadly they were still charged before they could have their parcels delivered. These were to Austria and Italy. 

I have contacted Royal Mail to ask for their feedback on this as they implied charges would be unlikely. If customers are still going to be charged at their end then I struggle to see what all this effort has been for as we will really struggle to win back the alienated EU customers. 

Nitsa
Pathfinder
83 0 38

I have noticed a really disturbing situation with EU customs lately with nearly all packages being held up and subject to erroneous charges and nothing we can do about it. Our tracking shows a package held in Frankfurt for over 3 weeks and all attempts by us and customer to get a response failing miserably. A client in Belgium who works for a large magazine publishing company, tells us that while shipments from Japan, China, US etc arrive as normal, some not even charged let alone opened, the reverse is true for packages from the UK, delayed, opened, charged often at wrong rates. IOSS is not going to change that mindset.

MichaelC-C
Excursionist
11 0 14
I agree and, having just completed yet another ONS questionnaire I continue
to boggle at how slow the Office for National Statistics is to pick up on
the fact that Import VAT was and remains a major problem and now seems to be
a political football.
MichaelC-C
Excursionist
11 0 14
Blimey what a shambles! Please let us know what Royal Mail says.
Candi_Q
Excursionist
17 0 17

Hi @LauraECY 

That is really disappointing to hear. I finally get my IOSS number but still have not had a single response from Crossborderit after 5 emails to their support team. 

I sent my first parcel to a customer in Ireland via Royal Mail Click and Drop. I have struggled with uploading the necessary files on crossborderits platform. Hopefully the customer receives it okay.

 

 

Fanattik
Tourist
7 0 7

Hi there,

Was the amount your customers charged VAT though or just import duty, I have a feeling that although ioss takes care of VAT until the Royal Mail offer a DDP service the EU customers will still have to pay import duty on items.

LauraECY
Excursionist
32 0 42
It looks like VAT to be honest. We are looking into it. What a mess.
Hopefully CBIT may be able to incorporate landed fees?
Morning
Excursionist
20 0 7

Was the amount your customers charged VAT though or just import duty, I have a feeling that although ioss takes care of VAT until the Royal Mail offer a DDP service the EU customers will still have to pay import duty on items.

Duty is only due on consignments over 150 euro and IOSS can only be used for consignments up to 150 euro, so there's never an overlap between IOSS and duty.

Nitsa
Pathfinder
83 0 38

@Morning. I think you're working on the assumption the rules are being followed; they're not. I stopped EU shipments last week because it was costing too much money chasing them up. Example, (and only an example, have many more I could pick from), 4 shipments sitting in Frankfurt, customs saying they have wrong tariff codes. OK, so 4 shipments all with different tariff codes because they were different items, codes we have been using world wide for 5 years with no problems, codes we are still using to US & Canada with no problem and now Frankfurt says wrong codes. Pure BS. Spain, Ireland, Sweden, Denmark no problems with shipping, rest of EU not worth the headache. Another company in our building, shipping bike parts, has also stopped shipping to EU for same reasons, in their case this comes to @£3K monthly.

I wish everyone good luck with their quest but please don't assume just because you are doing things correctly that it will be reciprocated.

Morning
Excursionist
20 0 7

@Nitsa I'm sorry to hear that, it sounds very frustrating. However, I think you’re making assumptions about my assumptions, which I don’t think can be inferred from my post.

I hope you get the customs issue resolved promptly.

LauraECY
Excursionist
32 0 42
It was VAT. I have chased it up with the Austrian tax authority and also
contacted Royal Mail to see if they can explain why the tax information was
not passed through correctly, as I am assuming this is the case. We had
also attached a commercial invoice containing all the relevant information
as a hard copy.

The initial generic response from the Austrian official was that no other
charges should be levied on IOSS parcels.

As an aside I found a forum post of Etsy sellers also finding that
customers had been charged twice so it appears that the system as a whole
isn't working and this is not just limited to individuals with separate
IOSS numbers.
Boo14
Excursionist
11 0 10

I have just had a French customer write to say that he has just refused a parcel, after being asked for 13€ from postman and that he will not be ordering from us again due to this situation! There was notification on the La Poste tracking to say 2€ customs fees were due, which I was also surprised by, but obviously not a lot of money, but an extra 13€ for a t-shirt when you have already paid tax, is crazy! That is what signing up to this system was supposed to avoid! So frustrating...we have our IOSS number going on our Click & Drop CN22 labels on the outside of the packaging. IOSS is set-up in Shopify and charging correct local tax amounts. I can't figure out what else we can do? 😞

Nitsa
Pathfinder
83 0 38

@Boo14 Frustrating isn't it? And as you say, what else can you do? The point I was making in my previous post is that you can do everything right and still get hit by this. We took the decision to suspend shipping because we didn't want to burn up customer goodwill. There is a lot of frustration about this in Europe as well from people ordering small items from as far away as China and getting hit with unfathomable charges. Really don't know how this is going to turn out...

Dbaca
Pathfinder
166 0 42
Carriers are having a hard time with this process. The best thing to do is to complain to them. UPS had problems the first week and corrected them. I see many carriers getting things strait. I am sorry it was at the expense of a customer.
Nitsa
Pathfinder
83 0 38

UPS ? Please give me a break, don't answer emails, don't acknowledge anything beyond a "do not reply" response, check out the trust pilot reviews. Look at me, 20 days and counting and I sill can't get packages out of Frankfurt, see attached file. DPD, Royal Mail, at least they engage with you, UPS is like a black hole....

Candi_Q
Excursionist
17 0 17

Hi All,

I had success with my delivery of a parcel to an Irish customer. It took a bit longer than usual to arrive but when it did there was no additional charges to the customer and I can confirm the IOSS symbol was present on my Click and Drop postage label.

 

So is there a trend with particular European countries that are having issues with double VAT charges?

 

Also is anyone else being completely ignored by Crossborderit? I applied for my IOSS number through them and it shows up in my Crossborderit account but I have been emailing for weeks and not had a single response! I am unable to upload my CSV file (constant error response) and I have requested the Private app link but hae not received it. Not sure how I am supposed to upload the VAT data as requested by Crossborderit at this point.

  

Andrei_S
Tourist
8 0 6

After uploading the CSV file we receive the error saying 'Source Country must be outside EU'. The inputted source country is GB which is outside the EU.. 

Dbaca
Pathfinder
166 0 42
Can you e-mail IT support …suport@crossborderit.com
CC damon@crossborderit.com
Beck_Prior
Tourist
9 0 4

In addition from Taxamo:

 

We appreciate that Shopify is one of the main platforms out there, our developers need to concentrate on the Magento integration at the moment.

We have noted your interest in the Shopify plugin, and again you can be reassured that we have noted your interest and we will contact you when the Shopify plugin has been created.

We do not know yet when this will be taken into consideration; it will be a business decision to see which will be the next platform to be taken into consideration.

You can build a custom integration by using the Taxamo API; for that, you would need to avail yourself of the services of a developer of your choice.

As Taxamo created the Assure product as a self-service model, we are happy to share with you all material available, including our developer guide, FAQs, and API reference.
Overview
General
Billing
Shipping & Returns
https://docs.assure.taxamo.com/docs/transaction-object

Dbaca
Pathfinder
166 0 42

Our Shopify APP is ready. I will upload all the data without needing to do it manually. 

You will need to have your IOSS number from us. Then E-mail support@crossborderit.com with your Shopify Domain and we will build you a private link. 

In a few weeks when the public APP is working you will need to switch from the private app to the public one which will have more functionality. 

Fanattik
Tourist
7 0 7

Could be a problem.

We have used the IOSS number and had an email this morning from a Spanish customer saying that he was charged the VAT, even though we used CROSSBORDERIT. Do you think this was just a mistake by the Spanish post office, what do we do when this happens because the customer wants us to pay him back the VAT we charged him. How do we get the money back from CROSSBORDERIT when this sort of thing happens?

LauraECY
Excursionist
32 0 42
Hi, we have had this with 2 customers. I think it was an issue with Royal
Mail. We had written the IOSS no on the parcel, attached a Commercial
Invoice detailing the tax paid by the customer and none of that seemed to
have been taken into account. The first person I spoke to at Royal Mail
said it sounded like a customs issue and then disconnected the call as I
was explaining why it shouldn't have been.
I then spoke to the Click and Drop team who said their latest update should
have fixed the issue. After discussing it with our accountant we refunded
the customer who provided proof of having paid that amount to receive the
parcel and will exclude the transaction from the CBIT upload. I don't think
the UK and EU postal services were in any way ready for this and so the
implementation has been tricky. We are desperately hoping that the bugs
have been ironed out now.
Curb_Wear
Excursionist
14 0 17

I had the same issue with the IOSS logo not showing on a shipment going to Sweden, Click and Drop advisor told me this was just a label error, but like you mention it seems none of the postal services are ready and businesses are left to pick up the cost or extra work to try and reclaim any taxes paid twice.

Boo14
Excursionist
11 0 10

Re the Click and Drop labels, I agree that there seems to be a problem with the IOSS number not auto-filling on some of them, so double-check your printouts! Further to my post the other day, we sent the French customer two parcels from separate despatch locations, one got there fine and he was not asked to pay anything and the other (which was rejected, as he didn't want to pay tax), we now think was missing the IOSS number on the CN22 generated by Click and Drop! Really frustrating! 

LauraECY
Excursionist
32 0 42
Apparently (according to the Click and Drop customer services) if the IOSS
symbol is on the address label the EORI and IOSS numbers on the CN22 are
not required. It all seems a bit of a risk and we won't know for a couple
of weeks if there are any charges!
Boo14
Excursionist
11 0 10

@LauraECY Thanks for this. What is the IOSS symbol? I have not seen this on Click and Drop?? We are in the process of setting up a business account, as we used Drop and Go before, so are having to do everthing manually via a Personal C&D Account at the mo! Thanks.

LauraECY
Excursionist
32 0 42
[image: image.png]
We are only using Click and Drop for EU orders as we want to continue
supporting our Post Office using Drop and Go.
Considering that the electronic customs information is supposed to be the
important step it seems ridiculous that this tiny symbol can make a
difference!
Boo14
Excursionist
11 0 10

Hi @LauraECY Thanks. Unfortunately I can't see the attachment on your message? I'll have a look at Click & Drop too see if I can find something. We are using both D&G and C&D at the moment, too. 

LauraECY
Excursionist
32 0 42

Sorry about that, I'll try again!    

Screenshot 2021-07-29 133130.jpg

Boo14
Excursionist
11 0 10

Thanks for that Laura. I have just looked back and re-generated the paperwork of some past orders and can see that only one (23rd July) has that symbol on it. I had noticed the IOSS number had not printed on that one, so hand-wrote it on myself. I'm just concerned about the one before that! Fingers crossed. Thanks again. 🙂

Morning
Excursionist
20 0 7

That tallies with Click & Drop being updated on the 22nd. The IOSS number shouldn't be visible on the address label or CN22 label though. Unless it's the number of an online marketplace like Ebay or Amazon, it needs to be kept secret.

Boo14
Excursionist
11 0 10

Thanks. That's interesting. It was auto-printing out on our first few labels since 1st July. That must be why they have switched to the symbol! I will let our other despatch unit know!

LauraECY
Excursionist
32 0 42
That is really good to know thanks. Do you know why it has to be secret? Is
it to avoid others getting hold of the number to use fraudulently? I
assumed it was similar to the VAT no which is quite public.
Morning
Excursionist
20 0 7

It needs to be secret because otherwise anyone could use it for a package, and that owner of that number would have to pay the VAT.

One of the July 22nd C&D updates was to stop the number appearing on the labels, as it had been in certain cases.

Nitsa
Pathfinder
83 0 38

Has anyone scanned the QR code to see if it appears there? The "kept secret" bit bothers me, how would EU customs know it's a genuine IOSS label otherwise?

 

Morning
Excursionist
20 0 7

It's not in the QR code, it's in the electronic data that precedes a package arriving in the EU. The number is checked by customs against the EU-wide database. If it's valid, if the package value isn't over 150 euro, and it doesn't contain excise goods, the package will be released from customs for delivery.

Edit: Removed a bit about online marketplace numbers as I don't think it was correct.

Candi_Q
Excursionist
17 0 17

Can anyone share a screenshot of how they have their CSV files set up and have successfully uploaded to Crossborderit?

 

Thanks in advance!