Selling to the EU:prices in currencies.

Selling across the EU takes a few tax and pricing decisions. This text puts them in the order they come up in practice. It does not replace a talk with your accountant, but it helps you prepare for it.

These are two different kinds of sale

Selling to a company with a valid EU VAT number is usually an intra-community supply at zero rate with reverse charge on the buyer's side. Selling to a consumer is a distance sale where, above the threshold, you pay the buyer's country VAT. One store can handle both, but it has to know which one it is dealing with.

The ten thousand euro threshold and OSS

Sales to consumers in other EU countries share one threshold of ten thousand euro a year. Above it you apply the buyer's country rates and can settle them in one return under the OSS scheme, without registering in each country. Sales to businesses do not count towards the threshold.

Which rate and from which day

To convert VAT on an invoice in a foreign currency, Polish companies usually use the National Bank of Poland average rate from the working day before the tax point. That is a different matter from the rate you set catalogue prices with. Mixing up the two rates is a common reason for corrections.

The catalogue price is a separate decision

A euro price can be calculated from the zloty price at the current rate or set separately and kept fixed. The first is simpler, the second is better for a buyer who dislikes the same item costing a little differently every week. In wholesale a fixed price with periodic updates usually wins.

When it is not worth switching on

If foreign orders come a few times a year, it is simpler to handle them by hand with a zloty invoice. Currencies, languages and foreign rates make sense when foreign sales are meant to be a steady channel, not an accident.

How it looks in Torveo

In Torveo a store sells in many currencies and all languages, with prices converted at a rate or set separately. A company's EU VAT number is checked in VIES, and with a valid number the order goes with reverse charge. The system counts consumer sales towards the OSS threshold and applies the buyer's country rates once it is exceeded.

Selling to the EU is simple when the store knows who it sells to. Then the rate, the exchange rate and the document fall into place.