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 a document calculates in 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.

The workspace setting

Under Settings › Finance Documents you will find the Finance document display block. There, under Enter prices as, you choose whether new documents calculate in gross or in net.

If you change the setting 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.

Which basis a single document uses

A document inherits the basis at the moment you create it — and keeps it from then on.

An existing document cannot be switched to the other basis. If you need a document on the other basis, change the workspace setting first and then create the document anew.

If a document calculates in gross, you can see it at the top of the document, marked Prices: gross. On a net document nothing is shown there — net is the normal case, and a marker would only be noise.

The basis also applies in the line-item editor, to both price columns: a net document shows Price net on the left and Total net on the right, a gross document shows Price gross and Total gross. The column heading therefore always tells you which side you are looking at, and you can check every line in your head. The subtotal above each section and the totals panel at the end still show both sides.

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.

Prices in line item templates

When you create or edit a line item template, the same workspace setting as in the document editor applies: if Enter prices as is set to gross, you type and see the gross price per line in the template too — converted with that line's own VAT rate. Internally it is still stored as net, so a template keeps working no matter which VAT rate applies.

When you later apply the template to a document, the document keeps calculating on its own basis — the one it received when it was created.

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.

Can I switch a document from net to gross afterwards? No. The basis is fixed when the document is created and stays that way. Change the workspace setting and create the document anew.

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.