The Challenge
Since July 2021, online retailers selling to consumers in other EU countries must charge the VAT of the respective destination country and report it through the One-Stop Shop (OSS) procedure. For a retailer with sales in 18 EU countries, this meant 18 different VAT rates, separate general ledger accounts per country and quarterly OSS returns.
Manual mapping was error-prone and extremely time-consuming.
Our Solution
We implemented an automatic OSS account mapping:
Smart Country Detection
Automatic assignment of every transaction to the correct EU country:
- Detection via the end customer's delivery address
- Distinction between B2B (reverse charge) and B2C (OSS)
- Special rules for digital services
- Threshold monitoring (€10,000 de minimis threshold)
Account Mapping
Automatic posting to the correct general ledger accounts:
- Separate revenue account and tax account per EU country
- Support for reduced VAT rates (e.g. 5.5% in France for certain goods)
- Automatic adjustment when VAT rates change
- DATEV-compatible account numbers
OSS Return
Automated preparation of the quarterly return:
- Aggregation of all OSS-relevant sales per country
- Export in a format compatible with the BZSt (German Federal Central Tax Office)
- Reconciliation with financial accounting
- Archiving of the return data
The Result
- 18 EU countries taxed correctly and fully automatically
- OSS return in 15 minutes instead of 2 days
- Zero errors in the first 4 quarters
- DATEV export at the push of a button