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Thanks for the reply. Wouldn't it be relatively easy to also make for V4? I still think that calculating tax and removing VAT for VAT registered entities should be a core feature. So it is nice to hear you will be adding this but really unfortunate that it sounds like you will not be enabling this for v4 :( I can see no benefits in upgrading to version 5 and only a lot go headache and cost to enable all of my custom plugins applications.

Thank you for taking the time to discuss this internally. Do you know if this likely will be produced for version 4 as well as V5, or will it be V5 only?

Thank the gods! Thank you so much Krill! It is 3rd party developers like you who really help save the community of people using the invision software!

I have been using invision for over 10 years. I would like to start by saying that I have generally been a very happy customer over the last 10 years, with many supportive words of the invision software and always recommending people to use this forum software over others. I can not say for sure if in another 10 years time I will still be a customer :( Invision have dropped several key community features in the past, such as chat & native apps, many new community competitors have filled this gap providing better software. I genuinely have concerns about the direction invision is going, with the latest version looking more like a simply reskin then any real features added. I am one of the very few who has successfully built a business from a community and certain aspects are important. Invision was once IMO the leading forum/community software, but I do not believe this to be the case anymore. I pay invision directly for hosting, and would gladly pay more if all of the key features were there. Stripe Integration Invision only allows for Stripe and PayPal as default checkout integrations. Yet the strip API integration is missing many key features, 1. it isn't possible to turn on TAX calculations from Stripe as invision have not included that part (other community software has this) 2. it isn't possible for UK VAT registered businesses to remove the VAT at checkout, only EU is supported and this is through invison, other community software uses the Stripe payment gateway and allows for the VAT to be removed by entering the VAT number. I believe it may be better to enable all the features and let stripe handle the payment pages. I would like to stick with my forum on invision for the forceable future, but I am not sure for how long the software will remain relevant. The reskin (from some aspects, looks amazing. From other aspects it is over simplified and looks cheap and basic) I do believe a refresh is welcomed, so it is appreciated that something was done. But usable features may have been a better improvement, as version 4 also looks great IMO) Surely for a VAT registered business selling subscriptions through invison, a fully working Stripe API would be a welcomed improvement? I suspect not many of your customers ask for this, because they either are not doing things legally, or they are registered within UK/EU and not hitting the VAT thresholds so calculating VAT isn't a concern to them. Indeed it was not a cancer for me until 10 years later. I acknowledge that the large corporate/enterprises customers Invision have, are mainly using the software as forum software and not selling memberships. So there is likely a small % of forums / communities that require a fully working Stripe API. There are alternative community software that does offer this, as well as many other benefits, and invison are loosing market share to these competitors, so I do believe that it would be beneficial to add these features and increase the customer base of invison. I am not very hopeful that this will be added as I am not sure the team really understand from my side why it is an important feature to easily calculate the amount of VAT needed to pay. (a simple business issues) needles to say I am very disappointed that something I expected to be standard isn't included. If you do not want to fully integrate stripe, maybe there is an option within invison that can be added to calcite the VAT on all of the invoices? Forcing users to build their own custom gateway integrations at the cost of several thousands isn't great, this implementation should be done at the invison level IMO. After all you have dropped physical products, so the only way your customers can make a business from their community is by selling subscriptions, but you do not even fully support subscriptions as simply things like VAT calculations within Stripe can not be turned on as the API was not implemented fully (whereas competitors have done this and was one reason why I chose another competitor for another project) So in conclusion, please can you integrate the stripe API so that Stripe can calculate the tax owed. It is as simple as adding this parameter to the API / products:

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Vivamus vitae quam ut est eleifend porta vitae a nulla. Etiam vitae elit sit amet nibh lacinia feugiat vitae eget ligula. Phasellus pharetra ultricies consectetur. Donec eu urna mi. In sit amet ex pharetra, rhoncus libero condimentum, tempus justo. Etiam vestibulum dui eu scelerisque finibus. Quisque dictum rhoncus felis, eget commodo mi tincidunt eu. Suspendisse ultrices tellus orci, non tincidunt enim vestibulum eget. Donec consequat blandit ultricies. Mauris ut lacinia est. Donec ac sollicitudin leo, in imperdiet ante. Praesent ac iaculis nunc. Mauris sapien risus, facilisis quis leo quis, commodo fringilla erat. Interdum et malesuada fames ac ante ipsum primis in faucibus. Cras convallis, magna sed fermentum egestas, eros mi commodo neque, a imperdiet orci tortor in odio. Vestibulum lectus mi, dictum nec sodales at, viverra ac est. Curabitur at nisl tortor. Okay, seems to work that time for some reason. When I was trying yesterday it forced the quote box on the whole text not just the selection. So looks like it is working. The issue may be where previously could highlight a line of text and now highlighting a line within a text block quotes the whole text in the message, but if they are separated paragraphs it goes indeed seem to work. Thanks Marc. Hopefully Version 5 is successful for you. I personally think it is a downgrade in terms of UI, so will not be upgrading.

Hi, Is it no longer possible to quote a specific paragraph etc into a quote box? Previously could copy and paste text into the editor and then quote a specific section of it, good when posting from other sources. But looks like (at leats on invision itself that the editor can only quote everything in the text box? Has this feature been removed?

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Your (invision) customers buy your software and then sell subscriptions on that software. Those that hit the thresholds or who are selling from outside the UK/EU (such as businesses within the US) have a legal responsibility to collect and remit VAT to UK/EU if they are selling to consumers in these locations. Calculating the amount of VAT should be part of the software within invision, or at least implement the API so that Stripe can do the calculations. Otherwise how can large companies work with invision? Especially as there are a growing number of other software alternatives within the market place, one of which software actually does implement the API fully and care about their customers. I pay a lot of money to invision, but I feel that you aren't looking at the needs of your customers. Calculating VAT should in my mind be something that is does simply and easily, I can not even integrate any of the Stripe 3rd part software options because invison doesn't oimpliemnt the Stripe tax API part. Are there any report features within invasion software that can be used to calculate the tax liability based on the amount of VAT on invoices? Or do you have any suggestions on how to solve this customer? Has there not even any of your other customers who have ever faced this issue? Or none of your customers are doing business legally or have hit the VAT thresholds? Not checking the UK VAT numbers, is one thing I could try to work around by creating those invoices manually and accepting bank transfer only on them and submitting those separately to my accountant. But submitting thousands of invoices everyday and manually calculating the VAT doesn't make any sense. This whole issue around VAT is so much stress. For something that should be done. :(((((((

So to confirm, there is no way to automatically calculate how much VAT is due? How do businesses that supply consumers in EU and UK calculate their VAT liability? To me it seems so crazy that there isn't a way to do a basic business need, especially as there is a way to easily integrate it into Stripe so that Stripe can calculate it, but this API bit has been missed out. You mentioned previously that there was a way to see / calculate the total amount of VAT owed within invision software itself?

I have tax set up in invasion so the invoices themselves show the amount of VAT in the transaction and our VAT number etc. But how can I get Stripe to calculate the amount of VAT / TAX we owe, so that we can calculate it and file and pay the correct tax. Or are you suggesting that invision never implemented the Stripe API properly and the only way for me to calculate the amount of VAT to pay is to manually sift through all of our thousands of invision invoices with a calculator and manually add them up each quarter? Or there is a way for invison to automatically calculate it? And I am just missing the bit? Please can you point me in the direction of where I can find this? many thanks 🙏

Stripe has a feature to calculate how much tax is owed, I had assumed after enabling this it would be automatic but unfortunately seems like it isn't and that there is another step. How can I set up this with Invision so that Stripe automatically calculates how much VAT/tax is owed? Looks like I need to add this code somewhere but not sure where: automatic_tax[enabled]=true. Is there a space somewhere in the Invision settings to put this? Many thanks in advance.

Although maybe would be useful if was a checker like in the EU, then allows for instant purchases from VAT business accounts from the forum store 🤔

My original assumption was that the VAT number was needed to be added within Invision, which is then passed onto Stripe to remove the VAT, and the Stripe tax calculation automatically took that into account. (Other software I am using for another project does tax the VAT number at the Stripe level and that is where it is removed) But from the above it sounds like that it doesn't work like that. However, it looks like Invision does provide Stripe with the product/subscription name (unsure on what other details it provides) In which case if using Stripe for tax calculations, it may be better to have a separate product/subscription for VAT registered businesses anyway, as therefore (unable to test yet as awaiting VAT number to enable Stripe tax calculations) it may be possible to mark those products automatically as excluded from the tax calculations from within Stripe. If the above is the case then automatically validating the VAT numbers may not actually much of an issue, and a manual check when setting up those products/subscriptions for Vat registered entities is fine.

Yes actually that is most probably true! And collecting VAT numbers is not applicable for consumers or non VAT registered entities, as they are treated like B2C. Do you know how Stripe would define if the customer is a business or a consumer for tax calculation purposes? Does it depend on if the Consumer or Business address in invasion is filled out, or is there is no way for stripe to calculate this and it assumes all customers have VAT within the price? Stripe allows for multiple accounts, each with different tax settings, but the invasion integration just allows for one Stripe account key. But Invision is telling some information to Stripe I would have thought? If for EU Vat registered businesses, it must do something? Or all it literally does it determine if the VAT should be added to the invsion invoice? On the other software I'm using, which also just uses one account key, the VAT number is entered at checkout and removed at the Stripe level for the customer. So Stripe does understand which customers are business / consumers. Appreciate a possible suggest solution. Would that work around apply to just consumer addresses, or all? As holding for all customers with a UK address wouldn't be practical, ~95% of the customers are indeed consumers. Especially if it also counts for renewals. I guess another work around, I could maybe set up a custom product for VAT registered businesses with a separate tax setting within invision, allowing payment only via Bank Transfer to skip the Stripe integration, which may not be that well integrated as may not be doing what I thought it was. But then it would be duplicating the packages in the store and making it more messy. I appreciate your time answering this, and I understand that tax calculation is a difficult and complicate subject.

Yes, unsure why no demand. Anyone outside of the UK selling Memberships to customers within the UK must charge VAT and remit to the UK as there is a £0 threshold so must immediately register. Same with the EU, any company outside of the EU selling to the EU must immediately collect EU VAT. Local companies selling just to the local market do have some thresholds before they must register for VAT. The issue with the suggested workaround above, is that it would potentially allow non UK VAT registered entities to put a random number in and then deduct the VAT? I am unsure exactly how Invision interacts with Stripe, and at what point the VAT is removed, as we have only recently registered for VAT and Stripe needs the VAT number (of ours) before can enable tax collection. So currently any VAT registered businesses we have produced an invoice for with a special VAT reverse charge setting within Stripe so it can be deducted, after having manually validated their VAT number. Payment has then been by bank transfer. Or with invasion does the check purely happen at the Invision software level rather than letting Stripe handle anything? For another project that I am using, we use an alternative community software and the checks happen with the Stripe level, but it is integrated closely into the system. Although they do not have an invoice system like Invision, which is good to have here :) Open to workarounds and finding a solution that works for invision too, just would be nice for everything to talk together nicely. Currently does invasion tell Stripe how much tax was added to the invision software issued invoice so that Stripe knows how much the tax calculation should be?

Thank you for your reply. Do you think this is feasible for Invision to add this functionality? 🙏 Otherwise all businesses around the world which are required to register for UK VAT from £0 worth of sales are unable to automatically validate UK VAT registered businesses and sell to UK VAT registered businesses removing the VAT automatically from the invoice. There are work around, to manually process a payment after manually checking. The UK is a very large market for many to sell to and would be great if the functionality was added as it doesn’t just affect UK VAT registered businesses it affects all forign companies selling to the UK market if VAT is applicable.

Thanks Stuart, do you think this is feasible for you to add this functionality? 🙏

Trolling me as usual. I do not even understand how this guy can be a Provider partner of invision which such closed mindset and such unhelpful replies. He even previously stated he put me on his ignore list, so why is he replying to my post? He is just an online bully tbh. You may not sell to UK Vat registered customers, but there may be businesses on invision that do, not just me but other customers. Please think about other people and not just your own use case. VAT and Sales Tax work differently. UK VAT in terms of deducing for VAT registered business and them accounting for it under the reverse charge works the same was for EU as UK. I am grateful if invasion decide to add this for UK Vat registers businesses 🙏

Hopefully that is just the case :) I can send you one via private message if needed, please just let me know.

Just tried putting a UK customer’s business address in with (valid) VAT number. Doesn't allow me to save their address as it says it is an invalid VAT number. Maybe the system only works for EU VAT customers? But then how can I then sell to UK VAT registered businesses with VAT only being removed if they have a valid VAT number? Is the answer really that I need to save them as a consumer in the system and then a manual check and a separate tax setting, applying this manually each time? Please can you add support to check UK VAT, as I which for UK VAT registered businesses to be able to buy memberships themselves with the VAT removed automatically if they are VAT registered :) It seems like Invision isn't actually set up for successful businesses to sell subscriptions on? I pay several thousand dollars to invision each year, and would like the native ability to be able to sell to UK Vat registered businesses, you do have this support for EU. Please can you add for the UK?

Update: a sort of work around is to have different pricing for the different currencies offered. Prices including applicable taxes. Would be good however to block members from EU purchasing USD packages though, and vice versa.

Thank you for the reply. I think think the issue may stem from you telling me how I am thinking or what I am doing, when that is in fact just your interpretation of the events from your side. And I stand by the statement that you are misunderstanding several of my posts. I am not asking the system to not do any tax, I am exactly asking for the invoice to show the tax. Yes exactly, doesn't exist in invision, hence I am asking for it. A disagree that a single price model is 'strange'. Netflix for example have a single price model per country, and the amount of tax charged depends on the customers billing address, but the end price is the same. Spotify, Disney+, Amazon Prime, Microsoft 365, Apple Cloud+ the same. (not to confuse their different pricing in different regions) Their prices for a specific regions are the same total price, irrespective of the customers billing region. I believe this to be a fairer way of pricing for the customer, so all customers pay the same, and the business absorbs the necessary VAT/Tax within the product price. The last past of your paragraph I will ignore apart from the brief statement; I will say that I believe it is you who is trying to project onto me. I never insulted you. But you seem to have taken some offence that I used the laugh emoji in reaction to your not very nice comment. And I still stand by my comment that I do not think you are a nice person, I conclude this based upon your written messages. 🙂 I haven not been dishonest at all in what I have written. I do agree that is the best course of action. I have never had to use it here, in nearly 10 years, but certainly would consider using it for you too 🙂 Thank you for the time nether-the-less.

The problem is that you were misunderstand what I was writing. And stating things that I simply did not state. I also wasn't asking you for tax advice, not sure if you are qualified to give such advice anyway. Again, showing you are not a nice person. And trying to speak on behalf of the the whole invision community suggesting to or implying that no one else is going to help. Hopefully some other helpful, and nice, members of the forum can help out with useful suggestions, or workaround. I guess the only solution is for a plugin. 🙂

Please stop completely misinterpreting or assuming what I wrote means something else. Nowhere did I state why you imply I stated, you said "But you don’t want to set up any taxation in the shopping software, let it all calculate by Stripe (which is way too late as it happens at the point of purchase), and then have proper taxes in the shopping software (you chose not to have taxation calculated in) because you now want it for the user invoices. That’s self-contradicting. " This is false. I think you are perhaps just trying to argue for the sake of argument, you are completely misconstruing what I wrote. I didn't say that I do not want to use Invision to show the taxes on the invoice, I am stating that the invoices do not show the taxes that I need. That is the issue. Your point B implies that you can disable Invision invoices and let Stripe send out invoices instead, even when a purchase is made through Invision for a membership subscription. Do you know if that is actually the case? Not sure what you mean by 'Commerce' software. I also didn't mention any Commerce software, only invision and Stripe. I do not think it is a "super strange approach." I think you are misinterpreting what I am saying. Many businesses do exactly what I am suggesting, to have one price for all B2C customers and any applicable taxes are built into the price, absorbed by the company. The fact that Invision can not do this is the exact reason for this topic. Examples: (consumer) Customers in the US: pay £10 per month (invision invoice shows VAT at 0%) (consumer) Customers in UK: Pay £10 (invoice shows total amount paid £10, £8.33 before VAT, amount of VAT £1.67) This is for individual customers, subscriptions. Both customers pay the same, but the business absorbs the VAT as a business operating cost. I do not believe this to be a strange business concept. Businesses have separate subscriptions. But again the same, the price is inclusive of any applicable VAT/TAX, and those with VAT registration numbers can remove the VAT when purchasing. My suggestion was: