Multiple VAT registration numbers

  • Article

For businesses with warehouses in multiple EU countries, managing VAT (Value Added Tax) can be challenging, as each warehouse location requires a different VAT number to comply with the specific regulations of each country. This article provides information about this requirement and it explains the functionality for multiple value-added tax (VAT) registration numbers. This functionality allows users to set up tax registration numbers for its customers in different countries/regions.

Note

The Multiple VAT numbers for customers functionality is available only from Business Central 2024 release wave 2 (version 25).

How to set up the alternative VAT registration numbers

To set up the alternative VAT registration numbers for different countries/regions, follow these steps:

  1. Select the Lightbulb that opens the Tell Me feature. icon, enter Alternative Customer VAT Registration, and then select the related link.
  2. Add the customer in the Customer No field and country/region related to this VAT registration in the VAT Country/Region Code.
  3. You must add the VAT number in the VAT Registration No. field. You must stick to the format when you use Country/Region Code.
  4. If you want to use different VAT or general posting groups, you can alternatively add them to the setup in the VAT Bus. Posting Group and Gen. Bus. Posting Group fields.
  5. Close the page.

To create alternative address to your customer, follow the steps:

  1. Open the Customer card for the customer you want to add new Ship-to Address.
  2. Select Customer, and choose the Ship-to Addresses action.
  3. The Ship-to Address List page opens, and selects New.
  4. Fill in the information about your customer's ship-to destination.
  5. Choose the proper Country/Region Code.
  6. If you have already configured a new VAT Registration No. on the Alternative Customer VAT Registration for this country or region, nothing will happen.
  7. But if you didn't configure the VAT Registration No. previously on the Alternative Customer VAT Registration for this country or region, the following notification appears: Click Add if you want to insert the Alternative VAT Registration for this Ship-To Country Code.
  8. A notification appears as a warning that you should add new VAT number. To do so, you need to choose the Add action on the notification and the Alternative Customer VAT Registration page opens.
  9. This page populates your Customer No. and the VAT Country/Region Code. So, you just need to add setup that you want to use.

Work with the sales documents

You can create new sales invoice or sales order in Business Central. If you need to use a ship-to address that differs from the customer's address and is located in a different country, follow the steps:

Alternate shipping address

  1. Expand the Shipping and Billing FastTab.
  2. In the Ship-to field, choose the Alternate Shipping Address option.
  3. The Ship-to Address List page with available alternate addresses appears.
  4. Choose one of the addresses with different Country/Region Code.
  5. The Confirm Alternative Customer VAT Registration dialog page appears with a list of fields that you have modified because of the Alternative Customer VAT Registration setup change.
  6. Select OK to confirm.

Note

If you don't want to confirm such a choice anymore, you can select the Don't show again field and in the future you won't see this type of notification about changes. But if you want to enable it again, you can do it by enabling the Confirm Alternative VAT Registration field on the VAT Setup.

  1. Once you confirm, the values are overwritten with the values from the Alternative Customer VAT Registration setup. You can check all the VAT related fields that are under the Invoice Details FastTab.
  2. Post the document.

Custom address

In case you don't have the ship-to address configured but still want to use a different address for shipping, you can use this option.

  1. Expand the Shipping and Billing FastTab.
  2. In the Ship-to field, choose the Custom Address option.
  3. Change the country in the Country/Region field.
  4. Once you change the country/region code to match the VAT Country/Region Code of the Alternative Customer VAT Registration, the Confirm Alternative Customer VAT Registration dialog page appears with a list of fields that have been changed.
  5. Business Central will also change all the VAT related fields that are under the Invoice Details FastTab.

Work with no shipment

If there's no shipment as a process, you still can leverage from the Alternative Customer VAT Registration setup.

In the sales order or invoice you can find the VAT Country/Region Code under the Invoice Details FastTab and specify the value that matches the Alternative Customer VAT Registration setup. And you should see the same confirmation dialog page as above.

In this situation you can post sales invoice with the proper VAT Registration No. for your customer even if you don't ship items with this document.

Work with the sales credit memo

Once you post the invoice with a Ship-to address or VAT Country/Region Code that has different posting data, the corrective Sales credit memo takes the values from the Posted sales invoice header where these values are taken from the Alternative customer VAT registration, so no other actions required.

See also

VAT Management Overview
Set Up Value-Added Tax
Work with VAT on Sales and Purchases
Report VAT to a Tax Authority
Local functionality in Business Central

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