Q: In the UK VAT (sales tax) is included in the price of the item and we don't itemize out tax (accounting for it is only done when dealing with the tax office).  Is there any way of entering the price of items for example £1.90 for a cappuccino and have the system account for the 17.5% tax on that item in back office without it occurring in the front of house interface?

A: No matter where you use Point of Success, you can use this method for calculating the amount of tax owed to a taxing authority if you include tax in the price of an item. Point of Success tracks and reports sales tax charged when the software calculates sales tax. When sales tax is included in the price of an item, you can easily hand-calculate the amount of the total attributable to product sales and the amount charged for tax.

Example: To calculate 17.5% tax on a $2.00 item, multiply $2.00 by 1.175, giving a total of $2.35 for the product and tax. To calculate the portion of that $2.35 that is product sales, divide $2.35 by 1.175, giving $2.00. Subtract the product sales from the total, giving $.35 remaining for tax.

Use this technique to calculate the tax liability on your total sales. Get the total sales amount from the Accountant Summary report, which can be found in the Financial report category.