I have been experimenting with the Petty Cash module on my test site for the first time, and am wondering if it is possible to account for VAT/GST when entering expenses?
I can't see any provision for this with my installation (v.4.12.3), but is there a workaround perhaps?
You are right there is no provision. It really needs adding in. I create a separate expense for VAT input tax, and add it to each tab, and then allocate the VAT there. Not ideal but it works.
As you suggest, I have started to create separate expenses for VAT.
I have subsequently found that the Tax Report (Tax.php), doesn't capture the VAT components of my expenses. Do you have a workaround for this too?
Hi Andy, Making it work in a VAT only environment with one tax authority would not be too difficult. The complexity occurs in places such as the USA where you have a complex sales/purchase tax system with multiple tax authorities, multiple rates, some are calculated tax on tax, other tax on net etc. Any solution has to work in a generalised way so that it can be used anywhere.
Let me have a look at the code and see how hard it looks to bring it in.
Thinking this through we would need to set a tax category (as in inventory items) and a tax group (as in suppliers) for each expense line being claimed.
The category is easy as we could set it in the expense setup script PcExpenses.php. This would just entail an extra field in the pcexpenses table.
The problem is when to set the tax group. At first sight you would want this set when the expense is actually being claimed, but this presents two problems. Firstly the person actually claiming the expense would have to know and set the tax group name, and secondly we have a chicken and egg situation, as in that screen we would have to be actually setting the amount of tax, but we wouldn't know the taxes to be used till the tax group was set. The question is can we set it at the previous stage when we create the PC tab (PcTabs.php)? This would depend on whether there was ever going to be one tab with different tax groups applied to it.
I see what you mean.... It does get a little complex if trying to cater for multiple tax territories/mechanisms.
So, for instance, in a business where expenses may be made in many different countries, the tax groups for those countries would all have to be set-up before an expense claim could be made - there could be quite a long list, which requires frequent maintenance.
From the manual: Petty cash expenses are controlled in a friendly way, enabling all employees (including those without
accounting knowledge) to enter their expenses and get paid for them.
In keeping with the above, should we try to keep it simple?......
Why does the VAT amount need to be driven by settings stored in the database?
Could there simply be two fields for input; Total amount on receipt, and Tax amount (which can be legally recovered) ?
I have worked with a couple of expenses claim systems, and both had a flexible nature such as this. I've attached a screenshot of the system I currently use at work, showing the fields required for a food expense.
Hi Andy, I agree it needs to be kept simple, preferably so that it can be used from a mobile device. However there is the complexity where tax need to be reported to more than one authority, for instance state and federal. The way I mentioned above would remove the complexity to the setup so that the person claiming the expenses would see a screen pretty much as you describe with a box for each tax rate. See the screen shots attached for the same screen, but one where the tab is setup for one tax rate and one for two tax rates.
I have completed this, so now input boxes for the correct tax authorities are shown for each expense. The code is available via my github account, and as always I am happy to work with anybody to integrate this into the Phil's Sourceforge repository.