The Taxman Cometh!

[needundies]

Hi,

My book-keeper and accountant have both informed me that we must track all orders/invoices and they must be sequential. This is OK for the orders that progress through to Order Manager as A) we keep a hard copy anyway and B) we have the electronic copy in the system.

My question is what is everybody else doing about the failed orders within the "Orders In Progress"?. Although some of these may eventually complete, a significant number do not although they are allocated an order/invoice number.

With our old eCommerce system we simply printed out the copy of the failed customer order and filed it in a "Failed Orders" file.

I also understand that the failed orders within the "Orders In Progess" area is cleaned up every 3 months.

Any feedback would be really useful.

Thanks, Andy

[little-linguist]

Hmm. Our accountant has never mentioned this to be a problem. You've scared me now!

[petad]

I'd forgotten about this requirement, having not run company accounts for several years - ouch! We have many gaps in our numbering sequence.

How do you print the abandoned orders in Bluepark? I can see a list of Orders In Progress, but no facility to print the details. We can obviously take a screen print, but doing that on a regular basis (so we don't miss the 3 month cleardown) means we will get lots of duplicate prints of the same orders, plus no actual details of the order. Any ideas?

What I am used to from other systems (once wrote one myself in my bad old programming days) is a separate register of Order Numbers which don't matter if they get abandoned and have gaps, and then a register of Invoice Numbers which only get allocated when the order turns into an invoice, so you don't then get any gaps. Because Bluepark uses one number range for both, the possibility of gaps exists. What do others think about the two number ranges idea?

Pete

[Dave]

We use sage for our accounts and raise invoices for all internet customers and account customers and therefore our invoice numbers are sequential.

In Bluepark Configuration------>Order we have set Invoice Number to Enter Manually. When we complete the order we enter the sage invoice number.

Regards,

Dave

[Plushpaws]

Dear Andy,

I am surprised that both your book-keeper and accountant have not suggested that you invest in an Accounts Software package or similar as suggested by Dave.

Bluepark offers an excellent ecommerce package, however, it is not Accounting software. Nor will it edit photographs like Adobe Photoshop CS3.

[needundies]

We do use Sage Line 50, but not to re-raise invoices that have already been raised by the eCommerce package. This would mean either a lot of manual entry as we process a significant amount of orders every day or a software ODBC link between the eCommerce package and Sage.

Our book-keeper simply does a daily cash re-conciliation, bit like running a normal bricks and mortar store where you have x amount of money in the till at the end of the day, as long as that tallies with the Protx statements then that's all we need to do.

[Plushpaws]

Dear Andy,

The order numbers may not be sequential due to 'failed orders', however, this is also true of 'non-failed orders', i.e. someone that fills their basket today, and checks out tomorrow.

I can not understand why your book-keeper and accountant would require records of 'failed orders', other than to have a file that is larger than required, and 100% sequential.

As your book-keeper simply does a daily cash reconciliation, surely the failed orders do not feature anywhere in your Protx statements.

[needundies]

If the sequence of invoice numbers jumps say from 21001 to 21005, we need to be able to account for the jump. If we can't account for the jump the HMRC inspector may assume that you did cash in hand sales for the missing invoice numbers.

I have been informed that to simply say that these were failed orders does not suffice, we need documentation to back this up.

[paul]

Andy,

Speaking as an ex-auditor you dont need sequential numbers. Your accountant/bookkeeper want this to make their lives easy which I can understand. However it is not a legal requirement - far from it. I would tell them how the software works and why completed orders are not necessarily sequential. Also tell them if they want to request any order number (not completed) they can see on screen that it doesnt exist (until completed).

Doesn't bluepark have a read-only admin user facility you can set them up with? I know it does have various admin levels/clearance for content/orders, etc.

Paul.

[paul]

If the sequence of invoice numbers jumps say from 21001 to 21005, we need to be able to account for the jump. If we can't account for the jump the HMRC inspector may assume that you did cash in hand sales for the missing invoice numbers.

I have been informed that to simply say that these were failed orders does not suffice, we need documentation to back this up.

just to answer you directly on this - if you wanted to do a cash sale to avoid vat surely you wouldnt be dumb enough to use a sequential number from the system!

[john]

We use an epos system to put product sales through and this produces a daily virtual till print out of total sales, this is entered in Quickbooks as that day's sales and accounts for the revenue for tax purposes and Vat for Vat purposes.

The system was inherited from our B & M store and has been used for about 12 years and many Vat and Tax returns, it never created any problems with the tax or Vat people, everything product is trackable from buying to banking, if you are completely on line the taxman is only concerned with tracking your revenue.
I can't see why your accountant could have a problem.
I don't imagine your turnover is anywhere near needing audited accounts so maybe he's trying to justify an inflated fee!

John Ayres - Prezziesplus.co.uk

[petad]

just to answer you directly on this - if you wanted to do a cash sale to avoid vat surely you wouldnt be dumb enough to use a sequential number from the system!
LOL! Good point!