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Buyer requesting invoice to submit as company expense
Hi all,
I've been contacted by a buyer looking for the order invoice to submit as a company expense. I always assumed that the order page served as the invoice, or maybe the email confirming the order.
Should I have to issue a separate invoice? For the sellers out there who have sold to companies, did you ever have to deal with this, and how have you done it?
Thanks!
I've been contacted by a buyer looking for the order invoice to submit as a company expense. I always assumed that the order page served as the invoice, or maybe the email confirming the order.
Should I have to issue a separate invoice? For the sellers out there who have sold to companies, did you ever have to deal with this, and how have you done it?
Thanks!
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> As a business you need to write invoices each time, and be willing to present them on request. Are you not a business? Your store seems fairly large.
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That is indeed the case. I'm not a business, so I don't think there's anything I can provide more than what's already available.
I'll direct the buyer to the invoice available from the "More actions" dropdown, as @Lawrence suggested. And I probably should add something to the terms and conditions to clarify things to future buyers.
Thanks for the help!
I used to send invoices to all of my BrickOwl customers, but I noticed that nobody really seemed that interested in them. Since then I am just writing them and keeping them to myself unless someone asks. Not a single buyer has asked one so far..
Anyway, when buying from a private person, the buyer needs to write a sort of reverse-invoice which the seller signs. The seller could also create their own note for the seller. Just write in an email that you declare that they bought Lego from you and for what price.
> As a business you need to write invoices each time, and be willing to present them on request.
>
I used to do that, untill I discovered one can use 'regrouped' invoicing.
It's quite pointless and a big waste of time to make invoices for each order (particulary as most buyers indeed do not need any). Since march I only make 2 invoices per month, one for EU (21%) and one for non-EU (0%), add excell sheets with the download of orders, I just add up and done.
The only reasons I would make a seperate invoice for a buyer is if it's for export and of higher amount (over 100 €) as that is a requirement for Customs (otherwise 'pro forma' will do) and offcourse buyers with a VAT number (rare).
So I would suggest to talk to your accountant, less work for you, less work for him/her (I managed to reduce my costs with my accountant because of this method).
> If the customer goes to the order on their account, they can access an invoice from the more actions dropdown
For private buyers that will indeed do, however this won't be valid for VAT registered buyers if they want to put the invoice in their bookkeeping: requires VAT number from the seller and an official invoice number which is not the same as an order number, as seller invoices have their own sequence.
When such buyer buys from hobby sellers, they can indeed use the online invoice, but they won't be able to recoup the VAT
In the UK you're required to keep records for a minimum of 5 years, but this could be longer depending on your accounting year and other reporting requirements. Failure to produce records on demand by HMRC can result in a £5,000 fine, in addition to an estimated tax bill which will always be weighted in favour of the treasury. This is particularly relevant if you trade on Bricklink where orders are normally purged after six months. PDF versions should be kept, but if you keep your records electronically, take regular backups!
Remember, a customer may request an Invoice because it's a requirement for them, regardless whether or not it's a requirement for you to provide one. Common sense should prevail.
A clear indication whether a seller is acting as a VAT registered seller or not, as it might be usefull for (VAT registered ) buyers to know in advance whether or not they can recoup VAT.
+ A 'tickbox' on the order submittance page allowing buyers to request an official invoice for bookkeeping purpose. If such is ticked, the seller would get a pop-up in the order that he/she needs to add an official invoice.
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> That is indeed the case. I'm not a business.
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At some point in time, a lot of 'hobby' sellers will need to question themselves on that.
Local laws usually do not differ much from laws in other countries, in most countries, when there is a clear intent to make benefit, one would need to be a 'registered' seller (or at least declare the benefit in their personal income declaration).
Now as long one sells some used items and occasionaly a few new things, one might be considered a private (aka hobby) seller. When an entire store is filled with 'new' and 'new only', this becomes quite questionable...
In the long run, websites like BL or Brickowl will somehow be 'forced' to take action on such, as they clearly state a seller should always respect local laws, yet those same websites are not proactive enough in asking their buyers to indeed respect those laws. A thin line...
> In the long run, websites like BL or Brickowl will somehow be 'forced' to take action on such, as they clearly state a seller should always respect local laws, yet those same websites are not proactive enough in asking their buyers to indeed respect those laws. A thin line...
They're not pro-active at all :) I know for a fact that Ebay isn't the only marketplace that HMRC monitors. I worked for HMRC for many years and there were internal news bulletins which often contained info about how people being prosecuted for selling commercially through free-ads, and Facebook groups etc. and not declaring the income. I know people still working there and they've told me a couple of major Lego sellers have cropped up over the last few years, but I didn't get any detail about whether they were BL or Ebay or whatever.
The worst thing is though that commercial sellers masquerading as private sellers distort the market for everyone, driving prices down, evading consumer rights, etc. You'd think the platforms themselves would want to prevent this but I accept it's not free to police so it ends up as a cost A vs cost B thing. Still, Ebay weren't exactly considered an innocent party when HMRC eventually took them to task.
And - in the UK at least - it isn't a question of new or old stock at all. In fact, I'd wager there's more value in used sales than new. It simply comes down to whether or not you're buying to sell, that's it. If you're pulling the minifigs out of a set then selling the rest of it, you're trading. End of. If you're buying two of a set so you can build one and flip the other later, you're trading. There's not really any argument, it's pretty black and white in the UK, but it will differ from country to country.
I'm selling via a UK partnership even though some - not all - of my stock is held in Belgium. It's a bit of a nightmare to navigate this with the Belgian authorities, especially given my personal circumstances, but thankfully the UK makes it easy which helps. This all changes in March next year of course :)
It does annoy me when I see someone proclaim themselves as a 'hobby' seller and then have multiples of several polybags or marquee sets. It's one of the reasons why I'm so pro-consumer rights, it helps force the cowboys to admit that they need to treat being a BL/BO seller seriously. If someone reports you to the authorities or takes you to the small claims court for refusing to abide by consumer rights legislation, it potentially opens up a can of worms regards income tax, etc. with all the resultant fines and penalties.
In Belgium the wording is even more specific (and then yes 'used' items would fall under it as well):
The law here is also using the term 'frequent lister'. This was specifically worded for sites like Ebay and 2dehands.be (or the late kapaza, kijiji and hebbes as well) with the intent to allow people to sell their stuff 'occasionally', but not on 'frequent' bases. The 'occasionally' resumes to 'a couple of times per year', not 'per month' and certainly not 'per week'.
Obviously, a wording like that makes it even more complicated for sellers working under the 'hobby' seller status, as on websites like BO or BL, the listings are frequent (in most cases) as it oftenly consists of sellings loose parts (for a couple of cents). However, technically, based on that wording, yes, most hobby sellers (in Belgium) are in violation of the law soon they list a couple of bricks every week, as that would be 'frequent'.
This could be bypassed however: if a seller gathers up everything for sale for months, and uploads everything in one shot (file import), is it 'frequent' then?
And no, I do not think sites like BO and BL are pro-active (*) enough on this, obviously because they would need to investigate the specific wordings for certain regions and/or countries and act upon it.
Fact is indeed I frequently see people selling without any form of 'registration' and indeed 'claim' they are not responsable when things go wrong.
The worst part customers don't see the difference on sites like this who 'is' selling on a professional base and who is not.
(*) The 'pro activeness' could simply start by having sellers declare whether or not they are working 'pro' or 'hobby' and have the site generate a pop-up for potential customers saying 'attention please: this is a private/hobby seller, you may not have the same consumer rights compared to professional sellers', or something like that.
Obviously a pop up like that would make people think twice about purchasing from 'hobby sellers' and drive more traffic to professional sellers, who obviously are being impacted by this 'unfair' competition.
> In the UK you're required to keep records for a minimum of 5 years, but this could be longer depending on your accounting year and other reporting requirements. Failure to produce records on demand by HMRC can result in a £5,000 fine, in addition to an estimated tax bill which will always be weighted in favour of the treasury. This is particularly relevant if you trade on Bricklink where orders are normally purged after six months. PDF versions should be kept, but if you keep your records electronically, take regular backups!
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Dunno the requirements in the UK, but I don't think the fact BL purges orders is a major issue.
You can still download orders including buyername, order numbers, dates and values.
If those things appear on an official invoice (in a bookkeeping) then that should be more then enough as that would be 'the record' (= the bookkeeping) and the download compared to it would be enough to prove everything was done correctly (and declared correctly). The 'content' of the order (purged indeed) would be quite irrelevant I believe, unless HMRC is that severe it wants to know every brick you sold LOL.
Same goes for people who do declare their sales (without bookkeeping): as long the download matches what was declared, then doubtfull the purged data would be a problem whatsoever.
So if you're occasionally eBaying or Brickowling old sets here and there, you're good - you are no-kidding the occasional, private seller. If you have a parts inventory you're selling off slowly (even as spares that you are not proactively restocking)? I would bet they see you as a business. And that's just the Federal (national) level. My state and county VERY much want their piece of the pie, too. :-)