Enter prices gross or net

Many businesses quote round prices including VAT to their guests — “45 € per person, all in”. Univents always calculates in net prices internally, because invoices, accounting exports and e-invoicing require it. That no longer means you have to convert by hand: you enter the price on whichever side you think in, and Univents derives the other.

This article is for anyone who maintains products or writes quotes and invoices.

Entering prices on a product

When editing a product you will find two price fields below each other:

• Price (net) — the amount excluding VAT
• Price (gross) — the amount including VAT

Type into either one and the other follows automatically. The product remembers which side you led with. That matters when you change the VAT rate later: if you led with gross, the gross price stays and the net price is recalculated — so the price you quoted your guest remains valid.

The field you are not currently typing in shows two decimals. Univents calculates more precisely internally; hover over the field to see the full value.

If the VAT rate is still empty, Univents cannot derive the other side. Fill in the VAT rate first.

For bundles with automatic price calculation both fields are locked — the price there comes from the products the bundle contains.

What appears on the document

A document calculates either in net or in gross. This setting governs not only how you type, but also what your customer sees:

Document in gross — the usual case for private customers. Unit price and line total are printed as gross amounts, with VAT broken out underneath:

Menu Classic        80 × 45.00 €   =   3,600.00 €

Total (incl. VAT)                      3,600.00 €
of which 19 % VAT                        574.79 €
Net amount                             3,025.21 €

Document in net — the usual case for business customers. Unit price and line total are printed net and VAT is added at the end. This is the previous behaviour.

When several VAT rates appear on one document — food at 10 % and drinks at 20 %, for instance — VAT is listed separately for each rate, as German and Austrian VAT law requires.

Check your intro text

⚠️ Many offers carry a standard sentence such as “All prices are exclusive of VAT.” If you switch a document to gross, that sentence contradicts the printed prices — the line items then show gross amounts.

Univents does not rewrite your text, because it is your text. Adjust it for gross documents, for example: “All prices include VAT.” If you work with templates, it is worth keeping one template for gross and one for net documents.

Setting the workspace default

Under Settings › Finance you choose whether new documents calculate in gross or in net. Newly created documents inherit this default.

If you change the default later, documents that already exist stay as they are. That is deliberate: an invoice you have sent must still look the same in five years.

Changing a single document

The header of every document shows which basis it uses. You can change it there — the display and the way you enter prices change with it.

If you add a product you maintained in gross to a net document, the price is rounded to two decimals. Univents flags this on the line. The reason: on a net document, unit price times quantity should equal the printed line total exactly, so your customer can check the arithmetic.

Common questions

Do my existing documents change? No. All existing documents and products stay exactly as they are. Gross entry is off until you switch it on.

I am a small business and do not charge VAT. Then gross and net are identical and the setting changes nothing on your documents.

Why did the invoice say 45.01 € when I had agreed 45.00 €? Because the net price was rounded to two decimals along the way, and the gross amount was then calculated from that rounded value. Univents now calculates precisely throughout, so the amount you quoted is hit exactly.