How can we improve WHMCS?

jam smith this is not fuly correct
if you presale a certain product yes then taxes aply if he just deposit money to use it later then they dont apply just yet

Also under UK law this is required:

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/vat-instalments-deposits-credit-sales

Advance payments and deposits
An advance payment, or deposit, is a proportion of the total selling price that a customer pays before you supply them with goods or services.

The tax point if you ask for an advance payment is whichever of the following happens first:

the date you issue a VAT invoice for the advance payment
the date you receive the advance payment

"and only the amount WITHOUT VAT is added to his credit account"

i think it could confuse some clients when we show them only the tax deducted amount in their funds overview. Most of them don't understand the tax system and why we reduce the amount. So we have to find a way to display the customer the whole amount with tax included. If they add 10€ there must be 10€ displayed in the overview.

But I agree, its very important to find a solution for that problem nearly. Actually it's not possible to use the WHMCS credit system as a EU registered business and that is a big problem.

You should really make this usable for the EU!

If you export revenue (using Sales TAX) then you will see that both CREDIT + USED credit show up.

For example you have 100 customers all put in a credit € 100,- = € 10.000
If they all spend the credit during you tax period (say three monthly) you will see in the report € 20.000 invoiced items.
If you pay corporate tax you will pay over this double counting.

In the case of this proposal you get one invoice for the credit + TVA (unless sold outside Europe or to an European company with valid VAT number outside your own European country.) and only that invoice is added to your revenue. This also makes credit final purchase.

All orders are invoiced. But are not counted to your revenue, because they are paid with credit.

Bookkeepers of your customers will stop complaining, because they only have to deal with one CREDIT invoice, instead with invoice per domain/service and if they are paid with current credit, have to keep that in mind.....

Your own bookkeeper/accountant will get a correct revenue list.

I must say that being new with whmcs, when this happened the first time, some of us were confused. At first, we thought there was an error in the billing system and that an invoice had been generated in error. We dd not know that when a client added funds that the system would generate an invoice. In fact, we submitted a support icket when it happened. Having thought about it, the generation of the invoice did make us aware of the funds being added. Whereas, ohterwise, we would have no way of knowing. It would be nice if there were something that had warned us about this proceedure and not having to learn the hard way. Nevertheless, I would reccomend to use it as is.

3 Years ago.....

This is truly sad.

Ok since some here are from UK i looked that up
It depends how you declare those deposits

if you declared those as a forfeit deposit (customer loose the deposit if they dont use it) you have to charge VAT upfront but you can claim vat back if it isnt used

if those are delcared are refundable deposits you DO NOT charge vat even in UK.

However i hardly doubt you can decalre those as forfeit deposits at all.
That kind of deposit is usually part of a contract/order agreement with a certain date for fulfillment.
for example you book a room, or book a catering, but then change your mind and cancle it.
here you can legally forfeit deposits.

in our case this doenst apply. those deposits are not bound to a certain transaction, they are threated and sold as a credit balance. therefore there isnt any final date where you could declare the contract as failed.
it is also NOT LEGAL in the EU to declare vouchers or credit invoices, with a positive balance for the customer, and similar as forfeit. those are equivalnet to real money or a balance on a bank account and cant forfeit in that therm anyway.

you may built something in your TOS, maybe youre lawyer are good enough to even do that but really i wouldnt do it.

the downsides are plenty, a you piss of customers, b you might loose a legal battle over it. but worse is c
if you charge vat on credit invoices, you have later deduct exactly that amount from a chargeable invoice,
but this is only half of that, your accountant will have a real fun with those too, it needs to be booked splittet

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/vat-instalments-deposits-credit-sales
thesection returnable deposits would apply in our case

the section advance deposits and payments doesnt apply in our cases.
those are bit missleading terms, its usually bound to a certain contract/order - lets say he orders abc, you say ok 500 upfront rest at delivery then you have to charge VAT. it is not ment as an advance deposits for furhter possible contracts that are not known yet

so best ask your tax guys but i think it is enough to declare those as returnable deposits
and dont harge vat, makes your life less miserable

uhm this is wrong.
in europe you do not charge VAT for credit invoices, at least in most countrys i know of i dont know for the others.
please consult your accountant for this.

this are deposits and shoudl NOT be invoiced at all or should get their own numbering,
usually you just send a reciet for recieivng those funds, or request them but this is NOT an invoice.

an invoice is exclusivly used to charge for products and services, VAT applies only to those either.

when you recieve the credit it is NOT added to your revenue, your just holding that money for your customer,
VAT
does not apply YET and this money isnt yours, it is still your clients
money and depending on the laws in your country he usually is able to
ask to pay it back anytime.

it is liek vouchers you buy from a
store. ONLY if a voucher is actually bound to a certain product - lets
say 100€ voucher for a 100$ microwave modelx XY then this is actually
already a sale and VAT applies (thats a special case).
if its just a voucher for credit NO VAT applys.

there maybe some countrys where this is different but you really should consult your tax lawer.
however vat on credit invoice isnt useable for most european countrys either.

what
we need is an own type of credit invocie which isnt a real invoice -
some sort of reciet that we recieved or ready to recieve it.
we also
need the ability to refund those. all transactions regarding
creditinvoices shoudl stay out of the regular invocies and best be
handled with hteir own type of document - so uyour accountants can book
those funds as deposits by customers.

+1 for this

Any news about this function? I need that too :/

Yes, this would be awesome!!!

BUT choosing if VAT gets on (Client adds FUNDS / Credit to his Account) OR VAT gets on (Paying with his Credits)
I have created a Thread for this: http://forum.whmcs.com/showthread.php?111902-VAT-and-FUNDS-Problems

referring to our tax consultant Credit has to be ADD without VAT BUT using Customers using Credits to pay should always includes VAT. Otherwise its illegal.

Invoice shouldn't be created for 'add funds'. But only for purchase of a service/product.

"Funny, I always assumed the 'daft' procedures of WHCMS were because it's based in the UK. ;-)"
In this particular instance you could well be right :)

"In the USA we don't have laws about sequential invoices"
To the best of my knowledge we don't have to issue sequential invoices either.

"it is completely foreign to have an invoice with the only line items being other invoices."
You're absolutely right, in fact a sheet of paper which lists invoices that are due for payment is called at Statement

I don't understand why this is even being considered; it's illegal in the UK and the EU to take money from someone without (a) providing goods or services or (b) providing a VAT Invoice
End of discussion.