VAT
Manage VAT on the VAT line in Business settings → Your business. The registration setting applies across Bottle, including invoices and integrations.
Are you registered?
Section titled “Are you registered?”If VAT registration is off, Bottle does not charge VAT, regardless of stored product rates. VAT columns and invoice VAT lines are hidden.
Turn registration on or off with the switch on the VAT line. If registered, select Edit on that line to enter your VAT number so it appears on invoices.
Product rates remain stored while registration is off. If you turn it on later, review those rates before issuing invoices.
How you enter prices
Section titled “How you enter prices”This is only about how you and your team enter prices in the office. Consumers always see prices with VAT, on your shop and on their invoices, whichever you pick.
Once registered, select Edit on the How you enter prices line and pick one:
- With VAT: type the price with VAT in it. £40.00 stays £40.00, and Bottle works out the VAT inside it.
- Before VAT: type the price before VAT. Bottle adds the VAT: £33.33 becomes £40.00.
Every price box in Bottle says which one you picked, and shows the other figure under it as you type. The Products list shows prices the same way, with the other figure in small print.
When you select New order, Prices entered as starts with this choice. You can change the dropdown for that order without changing the business setting. Choose Including VAT when the figure you type is the final amount the customer pays; choose Excluding VAT when Bottle should add VAT to it. The selected basis is kept on the invoice lines and passed to connected accounting software.
You can change it at any time, and prices you have saved stay the same. A product saved at £40.00 with VAT still costs the customer £40.00 after you switch to entering prices before VAT. Next time you open it, the box shows £33.33, the price before VAT.
The same choice is asked in the setup wizard, on the VAT step.
Set the appropriate rate on each product. Different products can use different rates.
Check HMRC’s fuel and power guidance or ask your accountant which rate applies to your sales. Bottle applies the rate you configure; it does not determine tax eligibility.
Imported products and API-created products without a supplied rate start at the standard rate. Review them after import.
Prices from your shop
Section titled “Prices from your shop”A product pulled from your shop keeps the figure the shop had, marked as including or excluding VAT. Most shops say which, and Bottle follows them. For a shop that does not say, or says it wrong, choose Include VAT or Exclude VAT under Prices in this shop on the shop’s panel in Connections, or beside the import button on Products.
WooCommerce products also keep the VAT rate from their tax class, including reduced and zero rates. Pull the catalogue again after changing a WooCommerce product’s tax class or the rate behind it; Bottle updates the linked product’s rate without replacing a Bottle price you have edited. If one tax class has different location-based rates, or the connection cannot read the tax table, Bottle leaves the product’s existing rate alone rather than choosing one.
After each pull, Bottle says what it did: for example, “Imported 25 products with prices including VAT, as your shop reports”. Review imported prices and tax rates before using them. See Connecting your shop.