Printing previous bills

[#1]

It is now possible to print the bills but as someone who is registered for VAT this 'receipt' is of little value.

Plusnet are not the only company now exploiting a loophole to attempt to coerce business customers from a domestic tarif to a business tarif which are invariavbly more expensive. This is unnaceptable the service is the same.

Preventing the download of a VAT invoice is as equally damming as not including VAT in a displayed price, something that was successfully tackled some time ago within the retail environment. This attitude is sort of the reverse.

No VAT invoice? I am off to another suppplier. If there is a route to printing a VAT inviice it has been been deliberately and torturously obscured.

[#2]

@snoman,

Before you leap, do make sure that your new provider will provide a VAT invoice on a (cheaper) residential service … and that the T&CS do not prohibit running a business on such a service (as do Plusnet's).  Many of the big suppliers have stopped issuing VAT invoices on residential services**.

Broadband is much like phone line services - there has always been residential and business tariffs for phone lines - the services might appear to be similar, but they are not identical.

**Personally I suspect that due to a significant level of none or late invoice payment in the residential sector many suppliers of domestic services have move to "Not a VAT invoice" so that VAT does not become liable until the date that the "invoice" is actually paid.  If a VAT invoice is issued, VAT has to be paid to HMRC upon invoicing, not when the payment is received from the consumer … which could be anything between a long time and never.

[#3]

re townman

vat invoicing, I'm a Ltd co, I to pay vat before I get it, wether or not I do get paid, I have to show the vat separately on my invoices, surely it's wrong to charge vat then say it's not a vat invoice, once again rip off Britain keeps kicking the [-Censored-] out of honest people. Bye bye plusnet, I'll leave on principle even if it costs me, come on lads grow a pair and do a runner on plusnet, a real good service and people, ruined by greeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeedly shareholders and lickspittle management!

Moderator's note by Adie (Dvorak) Avoidance of swear filter removed

[#4]

vat invoicing

Sorry I forgot, you can account for vat after it's paid and not on issued invoices, if you do the later you can reclaim it on unpaid invoices and there is an account package that does it for you. So that reason you put forward, townman, doesn't wash!  Or do you work for plusnet uuummm?  Nothing personal I've been cynical all my life, sad thing is with good reason!

[#5]

I do not work for Plusnet; I have though done my research.  You might care to do the same.

What used to be called a pro-forma invoice can be raised as a request to pay.  It is not a VAT invoice and the VAT is not due at that time as would be the case if it were a VAT invoice.  Instead the due date becomes the date on which the charge is paid.

As I stated, this is a perspective based on researching the subject - that is quite different from any assertion that this is why Plusnet made the decision to change the process.

[#6]

Hi Townman

My apologies, comments were made without conscious thought, a long day then a stone wall trying to print stuff for the accountants!  You're quite right in what you say, I have to pro forma some customers because of their persistent late payment of bills, if your self employed everyone seems to think you spend time in the café or pub and drive around in a 4X4 tank etc and have a never ending roll of cash, so sorry again, just wish big business treated people fairly! 

Best regards

[#7]

Apologies also to Adie!!! I'll wash my mouth with soap.

[#8]

This is a difficult space. As you observe being self employed you simply cannot afford to pay the VAT on the invoice date ... and then live in hope that the bill will be paid promptly.

As for big business ‘being fair’ one could equally say the same of consumers: they’ve had the service, they’ve received the invoice now: being fair they should pay it promptly ... instead of ducking out on the payment for as long as they can get away with it. Setting aside the current issues, there’s always been a steady stream of people complaining that their service has been stopped because they could not be bothered to pay their bill on time when presented, with them having the expectation that the supplier will fund the cash flow. In the case of VAT, not only is it a matter of trading with delayed incomes, but also needing to find the VAT element on invoicing day.

As you suggest from your personal experience, the pragmatic way of managing the cash flow challenge arising from late payers is to not issue a VAT invoice. Sadly we’ve become a nation of late payers - everyone seems to think that it’s OK to receive goods and services ... and defer payment until sometime, possibly never. It is as though they believe it is someone else’s responsibility to find their working capital.

Oh and yes I have run a business ... most of everything was paid for by the time I took delivery of it.