Responding to the Consumption Tax Hike (Additional Billing) in the Workflow!: For a certain SaaS vendor the consumption tax hike in 2019 necessitated „additional billing“. OK, so… let’s try to automate the generation and transmission of this special invoice…
1. Additional billing for a consumption tax hike?
October 2019, consumption tax will be increased to 10%.
Well, they say „this is for securing stable financial resources for social security“, so it would be inevitable.
Thus…SaaS vendors are required to revise „unearned revenue“ (sales paid in advance). In simple language, we must make additional billing for consumption tax regarding annual contracts. Even if it is already paid, it does not matter.
Therefore, I would like to develop a system in which a PDF invoice file detail the difference in the new tax will automatically be 1)generated and 2)transmitted. As a matter of course, I will do it with „Questetra BPM Suite“.
[Voice in my heart] Well, with the modeling skill I have, creating any „Business Process“ would be a piece of cake. Not only workflows for „daily work” which will be improved continuously but also a one-off “repetitive job”, I can create workflow Apps and automated systems so quickly, bwahaha!!
I presume that most of the Steps that compose the Business Process will mainly be editing of CSV/TSV columns (processing like Excel work). If I have added the “automatic processing steps” (Add-ons) for multiplying, sorting, adding suffixes, summing up numeric columns, and so on, I should be able to assemble a Business Process with most of the steps automated.
2. Billing system completed
I have completed a workflow App. (Excuse me for omitting the creation procedure.)
I configured it so that entry of scheduled sales slip is the input of the Business Process. (also referred to as the „workflow trigger.“)
In the case of Questetra Inc., all „sales slips“ (including the prorated portion) have been put into Accounting SaaS at the time of closing. Hence, all I need to do is filter all sales slips by company name („account sub-title name“ in our case of ours) then copy & paste (select & copy cell range in TSV). With that entry, billing processes to each company will be started.
# Although it is a detail, all slips are backed up in Google Sheets, so I use data there to extract „after October 2019“. (Since data on the Accounting SaaS is a little hard to copy.)
At first glance, the Process diagram looks like quite a long Business Process. Certainly, there are many more automatic processing Steps (represented in gray) than I expected. However, there are not so many human Task (in light blue). It could be said it is Workflow Automation in the modern style. Even though I cannot deny that it looks like a hasty preparation, I suppose this could be sufficient as it may be 5 -10 years before the next tax hike.
At the steps to be handled specifically by humans, the followings are performed.
- Input Sales Slip: Enter „sales slips paid after October“ (slip of sales paid in advance) for each billing destination company
- Check Generated PDF: Check the invoice PDF generated automatically (separate the detailed data into 2 columns as needed.)
- Check Settlement Date: Sales representative determines whether the default payment date and billing date are acceptable.
- Check Settlement: Check the bank deposit for the amount charged.
Incidentally, for clients who require a paper invoice, an attribute “must be mailed” is given. It is devised so that in a Process flagged with that attribute, a paper invoice is automatically output from the printer in the office (with Google Cloud Print) as soon as the third step is finished. (All I have to do is to put it in a window envelope.)
Separately, for the accounting system, it is also equipped with functions to automatically generate „correction slips“ such as renewed sales slips, credit note, and payment schedule slips. (Only payment schedule slips are imported with the “not realized” flag.)
[Supplement for those with accounting knowledge] “Annual contract” sales are apportioned each month of the contract period (fractions are added to the first month if there are any) and are recorded on the 1st day of each month. The CSV of the sales slip is automatically generated in the Order Acceptance flow and is automatically linked (added) to Google Sheets. (The next morning, information to be imported to the accounting SaaS“ is automatically collected.) In this case, information that crosses fiscal years (sales after the next fiscal year) is also required, so it must refer to the Google Spreadsheet (instead of the accounting SaaS).
3. Operation of the billing system
Now, regarding all annual contracts, the third step „Check Settlement Date“ must be finished at an early stage. Considering the circumstances of various clients, I think „the earlier the better.“ For the time being I have set the default value of „Billing date“ to September 1, 2019, and of „Payment due date“ to October 31, 2019. (Progress monitoring is important.)
Well, I guess various troubles and inquiries will occur.
For example, a flexible response will be necessary for cases where the billing amount is small. For small scale users, the „annual contract amount“ is also small, and depending on the contract period, the difference between old and new consumption taxes may be several hundred yen. For now, even though I can think of a few ideas like „billing at the next payment invoice“ or „renewing the contract ahead of schedule“, thinking about what I should do is really puzzling.
That is, for the sales representatives (or the partners), they may dare to think „I’d better pay it out of my pocket rather than talking about such a troublesome subject.“ Hmm, I guess there is a better way of communication.
Anyway, I am still groping in the dark. If anything good happens, I will inform you.
# By the way, I want the country’s basic system (especially the tax system) to be simpler.
