Put 13% VAT on a bill without a spreadsheet
If your shop is VAT registered in Nepal, the bill a customer takes away has to show the tax, not only the shelf price. The standard rate is 13%. Doing that in a spreadsheet means a column for the amount, a column that multiplies by 0.13, and a third column that adds them, and then a second workbook when someone sells at a price that already includes VAT. One of those columns will be wrong by the end of the month, usually on the bill you already handed over.
The arithmetic is small. The discipline is deciding, once, whether the price on the item is before tax or after tax, and then letting every bill use that decision.
Pick one meaning for the price
A price is either exclusive (the customer pays this plus 13%) or inclusive (the customer pays this, and 13% of it is tax). Example, in NPR:
- Exclusive: 100 on the item becomes 113 on the bill. Tax is 13.
- Inclusive: 113 on the item is 100 of goods and 13 of tax. The customer still pays 113. You do not add 13% on top again.
Most counters quote the amount the customer hands over, so the price they see is inclusive. A wholesale bill often quotes the amount before tax and adds VAT at the bottom. Use the one your customers already expect. Do not mix them on the same item depending on who is asking.
Items that are not taxed, or that you sell before you are registered, stay at a zero rate. Putting 13% on everything because the button is there creates a tax you may not owe, and a total your customer will dispute.
What to keep on the bill
For each line: the item, the quantity, the rate, whether tax is in that rate, the tax amount, and the line total. On the bill as a whole: your name, the customer's name, the date, and the VAT number when you have it and when the sale needs it. A payment that arrives later does not change the tax on the bill. It changes what the customer still owes. Rewriting the bill to a smaller number because they paid half is how the VAT you collected and the VAT on the paper stop matching.
At the end of the tax period, you want one list: tax collected by rate, and the taxable amount under it. That list is an input to the return. It is not the return.
What this page will not do for you
Calculating 13% on a bill is not filing with the Inland Revenue Department. ERPesque does not submit your VAT return, and these notes are not tax advice. You, or your accountant, still file. If a figure on the list looks wrong, fix the bill it came from. Do not type a different total into the return and leave the bill as it is.
A sale rung up at the till uses the tax already on the item, including when the connection is down. That is covered in keeping the till open when the internet drops. The tax still has to be the rate you chose. Offline does not mean "add it later."
Where this sits in ERPesque
A Nepal organisation in ERPesque starts with a tax named VAT 13%. On a sales invoice you apply that tax to the line, inclusive or exclusive. The same choice exists on purchase bills, so the VAT on what you buy is recorded separately from the VAT on what you sell. The Tax report lists tax collected by rate, and you can export it to CSV or PDF for whoever prepares the return.
Download ERPesque from Google Play, confirm the VAT 13% tax is the one on your items, and write the next bill there instead of in a spreadsheet.