Combining OPC with EU VAT Checker

[casperhofstede@.....com]

Hi Stan,

We are using OPC, combined with the FedEx shipping module and EU Vat Checker. Initially we had a single problem but I fixed it, I am posting this here so others might find a solution or offer a better one.

Our problem was, that the VAT was updated correctly (removed or added) when the user would fill in his VAT Checker ID, however, the VAT Checker plugin works in such a way that it updates the shopper group which has certain tax applied yes or no. This, however did not work when filling in a country outside Europe, normally the VAT checker also takes care of that, but not in this case.

I did a search first, and found this topic:
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=749&p=2472&hilit=vat+shopper+group&sid=297d7c936747aef8d6a4026683a35a27#p2472
But there was no awnser.

I checked the EU Vat checker tutorial configuration:
http://extensions.virtuemart.net/all-tu ... at-checker

And discovered I could also tweak the VAT applied to specific countries, which does work with OPC. Even combined with the VAT checker.

Still it was a bit odd. Is there no trigger to change the shopping group (does not pay tax) based on the country in OPC or somewhere else?

[admin]

hello, we are in the middle of integrating our own EU vat checker into opc which will be much better support then any 3rd party extensions. Right now both "eu vat checker" from extensions.virtuemart.net and also "BIT EU Vat checker" are supported by OPC.

what you are probably looking for is to limit the default tax rules only to specific countries (EU) within the tax configuration here:


1. create a default tax rule of type VAT which will be associated to all EU countries
2. in default VM installation you can either show product prices without tax or with tax (basePrice/salesPrice) for anonymous - unlogged users, it would be cache inconsistant if you show different prices to non-EU and EU, once user fills the address within opc he becomes a "default" shopper group
3. you can alter the price/tax view per shopper groups only per registered users OR within OPC's checkout once the address is given
4. within OPC special shopper group feature you can create a shopper group/geo IP country match so that they see different prices from different countries, but this is cache incosistant

I think what you are looking for is just the restriction of the generic VAT tax rule of Virtuemart per country.

Best Regards,
Stan

[admin]

I did a few updates OPC's Geo country and shopper group match today, so a few fixes in this field will be available in 2.0.220. (the javascript of adding new countries at the backend does not work in opc 2.0.219)

best regards,
stan

[casperhofstede@.....com]

Thank you for the answer.

I think what you are looking for is just the restriction of the generic VAT tax rule of Virtuemart per country.

Yes, basically all the functionality in OPC works correctly when I add all European countries and states to the EU Vat Rule.

However, for some reason, when I add a single country the anonymous users (guests?) then don't have it added and they see something like this on our product price page:

1295,00 €
Incl. VAT 1295,00 €

Are they excluded from VAT because it cannot be determined from which country they are?

I have left the shopper group list blanc and have also tried making a new VAT rule just for anonymous group with the VAT but then it is also not applied.

[admin]

Hello, i recommend to consider unlogged customers as both -anonymous- AND -default- shopper groups - therefore pls assign the rule for both shopper groups as it's unclear when one or the other will be used (using no shopper group will automatically assign the rule to all of them per the country restriction)

You can also try to change the price display at VM 's prices configuration.

Best Regards,
Stan

[casperhofstede@.....com]

Hi Stan,

I fixed it as followed:

- The regular VAT rule is for all countries in Europe and set this for the registered, anonymous and pay tax groups.
- For anonymous (which does not have a country, thus no VAT) I only show the price Excl. VAT (under the shopper group price view setting) and will do some minor style corrections in our theme.
- The VAT checker will change the shopper group to "does not pay tax" on the checkout / cart page when someone enters a correct VAT ID.

Thank you for the feedback!

[casperhofstede@.....com]

Unfortunately, again, we are having trouble combining in the iStraxx EU VAT checker with OPC.

After a recent update we observed in the backend that the VAT check of OPC was also switched on by default. Additionally there were an extra 2 customer fields also during checkout switched on.

After disabling the OPC VAT check feature and removing the customer fields, we are still not able to get back to our previous state where the EU VAT checker works correctly on the checkout page.

We have been trying to debug this. What we found is that when entering the country and VAT ID, the user shopper group is -usually- correctly adjusted in the back end and the message confirming a correct VAT ID is shown on the checkout page. But the checkout page does not get updated/ajax reloaded, it still shows VAT. Sometimes it goes away when we switch delivery address (and shipping gets loaded).

Any thoughts where to start looking?

Version information:
VM: 2.6.0a
OPC: 2.0.244.130514
Joomla: 2.5.19

[admin]

hello, i recommend to unconfigure OPC's VAT shopper group. The istraxx VAT checker should not need any of the OPC configs, so all should be disabled in matters of VAT within OPC. If this doesn't help, i can help you on your site directly,or you may want to use OPC's VAT checker if you'd like. (we recently added also registration override so it's settings can now be used for the registration section as well - not only the checkout)

Best regards,
Stan

[casperhofstede@.....com]

Stan, I had a look and followed your suggestion, but the OPC shopping group was not in use.

I would really like to take you up on the offer to login to our back end and check what the problem is. How can I best provide you the login credentials?

[admin]

hello, if you can pls contact me over our live chat button on our site here, or you can send it to our email to info@rupostel.com, i can send you our skype as well in return.
best regards,
stan