Chapter 12
Tax
For businesses registered for VAT or a similar sales tax, the system can charge tax on sales, record the tax on purchases, keep Taxpayer Identification Numbers (TINs), and report what you owe. Tax on sales is optional and off by default, so businesses that don't charge it see no change. Purchases take a Tax % whenever the supplier's invoice has one.
12.1 Setting it up#
- Administration → Settings → Tax.
- Enter your business's Taxpayer Identification Number (TIN), if you have one.
- Switch on “Charge tax on sales” and enter the Default tax rate — for example 15 for 15%. The rate only appears while the switch is on.
- Switch “Selling and cost prices include tax” on or off to match how your prices are written (section 12.2).
- Click “Save settings.”
12.2 Prices that include tax, or tax added on top#
The “Selling and cost prices include tax” switch says whether the prices you type — selling prices at the POS and cost prices on purchases — already have tax in them. It applies to purchases whenever they have a Tax %, and to sales while tax on sales is on.
| Setting | How tax is worked out, at 15% |
|---|---|
| Included (switch on) | Tax is the part of the total that is tax, and the total doesn't change: a 115 total is 100 plus 15 tax, and the customer pays 115. |
| Added on top (switch off) | Tax is added to the total: 100 plus 15 tax comes to 115. |
12.3 Tax at the POS#
While tax on sales is on, a Tax row with the rate sits between the discount and the Total. Tax is worked out on the total after discounts.
- The rate starts at your Default tax rate on every new sale. The cashier can change it for one sale — for example to 0 for a tax-exempt customer.
- If your prices include tax, the customer pays the same total whatever the rate: changing it only changes how much of the total is recorded as tax. At 0%, the whole amount counts as revenue.
- If tax is added on top, the Total goes up or down with the rate.
- The receipt shows the tax as “Tax (15%)”, or “Tax (15%, included)” when your prices include it.
12.4 Tax on purchases and direct deliveries#
- Enter the supplier's Tax % on the purchase (section 5.2). It's taken out of your cost prices or added on top, as set in section 12.2. A direct delivery's Tax % works the same way, for both its purchase and its sale.
- Stock is valued at its cost without tax, since tax paid on purchases is claimed back. So when your prices include tax, a product's cost price is lower than the price on the supplier's invoice.
- The next purchase of a product starts at the unit cost you entered last time, tax included — so you can check it against the new invoice.
12.5 Taxpayer Identification Numbers (TIN)#
All TINs are optional; a blank one simply isn't printed.
| Whose TIN | Entered on, and shown on |
|---|---|
| Your business | Administration → Settings → Tax. Printed on receipts, goods-received notes, and customer statements. |
| A customer | The customer's add or edit page. Printed on that customer's receipts, and listed in the Tax Report export. |
| A supplier | The supplier's add or edit page. Printed on that supplier's goods-received notes, and listed in the Tax Report export. |
A TIN can have letters, digits, and hyphens, 4 to 30 characters — for example P0012345678, or a Ghana Card number such as GHA-123456789-0. It's saved in capitals, without spaces. The customer and supplier imports and exports have a tin column (Chapter 20).
12.6 Where tax shows#
- Sale and purchase pages, receipts, and goods-received notes — tax on its own line.
- Exports — the sales and purchases exports have net, tax %, tax amount, and gross columns for each line (section 20.2).
- Reports — revenue and profit leave tax out, because it's owed to the tax authority, not earned. Amounts customers paid and still owe include it.
- The Tax Report (section 19.1) — tax charged on sales, tax paid on purchases, and the net tax payable for a period.