Countries

Owned by Tina Sunjic (Unlicensed)
Last updated: Sept 06, 2023 by Lukas Schwalvenberg
14 min read

The [Countries] dialogue contains 27 EU countries plus Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Great Britain. AMANA opens the reporting forms of the selected countries for processing and enables users to send them, if required. 

A green check mark [] is used in the overview to identify which country forms are available and for which countries an electronical submission is possible.

The [Translations] function allows the users to adjust and change language settings.

Edit country

The [Edit] function in the [Countries] dialogue allows to change cross-period settings in the following tabs: [General Information], [Provided Reconciliations], [Other System Configuration]. These sub-dialogues will be described further in this manual.

General information

In the sub-dialogue [General Information], the configurations of the respective countries can be set and viewed. You can configure which functions are used in the respective country. The checkbox VAT Return must be ticked so that the respective country is available in the country dropdown in the dialogue Master data → Home. The ID (the top line) is predefined and comes from the country codes according to the ISO 3166. It is followed by the currency code, which depends on the currency of the import file.

Further on, it can be seen which forms are filled out in the VAT@GTC and can be sent electronically. The field [Tax group] is used to select the EU member states for which VAT groups are legally possible. Similarly, an attitude towards the pre-tax remuneration process can also be undertaken. The activation of the pre-tax remuneration procedure causes the corresponding control indicators to be marked in the VAT@ GTC in the [Taxcode] dialogue.

Rounding of declaration values

The default setting of the rounding procedure in Germany is ROUND_HALF_UP and cannot be changed.

For other countries, it is possible here to set the rounding method for declaration values. The following rounding methods are available:

ROUND_UP

Round to the next larger number.

ROUND_DOWN

Round to the next smaller number.

ROUND_CEILING

Round to the next larger number [always positive direction]. 

ROUND_FLOOR

Round to the next smaller number [always negative direction].

ROUND_HALF_UP

If the value is exactly ,5 between two rounded values, the value is rounded up [commercial rounding]. 

ROUND_HALF_DOWN

If the value is exactly ,5 between two rounded values, the value is rounded down [mathematical rounding].

There are two separate settings for the number of decimal places to be rounded.

  • Rounding scale: Here the individual entries per declaration field are considered. If there are four entries in field 81, three of which are import values on three tax codes and one of which is a manual adjustment on one of the tax codes, then all of these entries are rounded individually to this number of decimal places. With this setting, it often makes sense to round to two decimal places, even if no decimal places are requested when submitting the return, so as not to lose any information.

  • Rounding scale for sums: This setting affects field totals. If the field total is required without decimal places when submitting the message and should therefore also be shown in the message display, this can be configured via this setting.

The number of decimal places is set to 2 by default. This cannot be adjusted manually. If an adjustment is to be made here, the vat-support@amana.de will help.

Automatic correction

With help of the automatic correction the VAT@GTC automatically customizes the imported values of the SAP reports.

In the dropdown menu it can be regulated if the automatic corrections should be activated or not. In the case the automatic correction was activated either tax base or tax can be adjusted and copied to the VAT return form. This adjustment is related to the reconciliation 1 [Plausibility of VAT amounts in VAT report]. It checks whether the tax base and the tax match. In case of not matching, depending on the settings, an automatic correction will be made to the limit which is set under [Reconciliation]. Consequently, differences below limit are not displayed as reconciliation errors.

There are seven automatic correction options available: 

No automatic correction

No automatic correction and no entry in [Limit for autom. corrections (EUR)] mean that any differences will be shown in the Reconciliation 1 in [VAT] area. If the limit for automatically corrections is defined, while the automatic correction is not activated, only errors above the limit will be shown, however the differences remain unchanged.

Correction of base-fields

If the correction of base fields is activated, the tax [input VAT and VAT] is considered relevant. Tax values remain unchanged, while tax base is adjusted using the relevant VAT rate.

Correction of tax-fields

If the correction of tax fields is activated [input VAT and VAT], the base fields are considered relevant. Tax base fields remain unchanged, while tax values are adjusted using the relevant VAT rate.

Correction of base-fields (only Outputtax)

Unlike the [correction of base fields] option, only the output VAT tax is regarded relevant here, so that the adjustments of the base fields for input VAT tax can be made manually. 

Correction of tax-fields (only Outputtax)

Unlike the [correction of tax fields] option, only the base field of the output VAT tax is regarded relevant here, so that the adjustments of the input VAT tax can be made manually.

Correction of base-fields (Outputtax) and correction of tax-fields (inputtax)

In this case, the tax field of the output VAT tax is considered relevant and the tax base of the output VAT tax is adjusted. At the same time, on the input tax side, the tax base is assumed to be relevant and the input VAT tax is adjusted. 

Correction of tax-fields (Outputtax) and correction of base-fields (inputtax)

In this case, the tax base of the output VAT tax is considered relevant and the tax field of the output VAT tax is adjusted. At the same time, on the input tax side, the tax is assumed to be relevant and the intra-system tax base is adjusted. 

Good to know

The imported and adjusted tax bases are always carried internally for reconciliation purposes, even in the event that they are not displayed in the form. This applies in particular to the input tax amounts in German VAT returns.

The function [Decleration field updates] refers to the manual adjustments to tax codes that map to multiple fields in the return. Especially abroad, there is the possibility to map a tax code to several fields in the return. This setting is thus initially made for the import. For manual adjustments, you can decide at this point to which fields it is applied:

  • Update all fields with the same mapping: A manual adjustment for a tax code is applied to all fields to which this tax code is mapped. This setting is recommended in normal cases.

  • Update only fields with fixed base-tax relationship: Only the field on which the manual adjustment was made and possibly a field that is linked by a direct base-tax relationship will be adjusted. This setting should only be made with caution.

Provided Reconciliations

The sub-dialogue [Provided Reconciliations] can be used to decide which reconciliations are relevant for the selected country. A detailed description of individual reconciliations can be found in the [Reconciliations] chapter. The complete list of reconciliations is available only for Germany. 

Other system configuration

Other system configuration changes can be made in the last sub-dialogue of the [Countries] dialogue.

System settings that can be configured here and their effects on the whole system are described further in this chapter. 

Available Reporting periods

Under this menu item, the reporting periods offered can be configured for the selected country. In contrast to the reporting periods monthly, quarterly and annually, which are common in Germany, the reporting periods 2-monthly, 4-monthly and half-yearly are also an option in Europe. The reporting periods ticked here can then be assigned to a company in the master data.

VAT form templates

Use the [Vat form templates] to activate the form.

Before the VAT forms of the different countries can be uploaded, the VAT return type for the selected country has to be activated by using the [Edit] function. 

Import VAT Return form

The forms are usually added automatically when a new country is introduced or during the annual update of the VAT@GTC when the server is restarted. It is always possible that the official forms change at short notice or during the year. In addition, there is the possibility that the need to update a reporting form arises due to an error. Especially if many countries are used, this would lead to frequent updates, which can consume some resources and possibly jeopardise compliance with deadlines if the information is provided very late by the tax offices. Therefore, there is the option to upload forms at any time, so that the system does not have to be updated every time. In this case, the file to be uploaded is provided by vat-support@amana.de.

Reload all forms

Depending on the server configuration and environment, problems may occur with the automated upload of the forms when the server is started. In this case, the forms cannot be retrieved correctly. For this case, there is a fallback function to reload the forms in the running application.

Form examples

The following three figures show how the foreign VAT return form templates are displayed in the VAT@GTC.

Belgium:

Switzerland:

Romania: