VATGlobal is aiming to simplify the VAT for business with the launch of vlearn. The product is a portal that gives access to subscribers a wealth of detailed information about the intricacies of VAT across the EU.
With its new solution VATGlobal hope that businesses will find information easily without the need to trawl through documents which are often in a foreign language and complex. The portal provides:
- Specific themes and principles on VAT, all the way to country level information.
- Simple descriptors and definitions of VAT.
- Detailed minutiae around different VAT regimes.
It aims to enable users with responsibility for understanding the VAT landscape to quickly source the right information. Gareth Kobrin, CEO of VATGlobal explains: “vlearn was born out of our internal teams’ frustration with a lack of resource in the market for businesses to use themselves for the day to day queries that repeatedly came up; For businesses, it’s a huge time-sink and areas of concern, so we developed our own resource, using the knowledge of our vastly experienced team, and importantly the practical experience. Along with giving clear information to users, vlearn is also vastly cost effective to quickly clear up day to day VAT queries versus the resulting fines and penalties for getting VAT wrong.”
The solutions provide businesses with the necessary information to identify the correct application of VAT to their goods and services in what is an increasingly complex regulatory landscape. The product has been in beta for several months and early adopters have seen benefits in the reduction of time taken to find the right information and that the right use of VAT is applied. vlearn also compliments the of solutions from VATGLobal, vflow and vfile.
Availability and cost?
The portal is available on a trial basis with the first month free to all businesses. Subsequently costs will depend upon the size of the business. According to VATGlobal pricing is based on the number of users requiring access and the size of the business. Pricing ranges from £1,000 to £7,000. While VATGlobal indicates that the solution is available to small, medium and enterprise versions. It seems unlikely that this price point will attract many at the bottom end of the market. Companies will need to have significant exports to make this worthwhile. However, for those that do, the surety that they may gain from leveraging the expertise of VATGlobal might see them make the investment.
While the solution is available on a free trial it is not available readily. Companies need to contact a VATGlobal consultant (on +44 (0)203 961 7500 ) to arrange a demonstration, or simply email your contact details to [email protected] to preview vlearn in their own time. This is not the same kind of ease of access that other interest enabled services normally offer. However, whether it means that VATGlobal can validate the value that the business will gain is unclear.
Enterprise Times: What does this mean
For organisations with numerous product types and multiple export markets this is an interesting proposition. Whether it also can provide software companies with the information they need to update their systems is unclear. What it doesn’t seem to offer is an integration to any ERP solutions. Enterprise Times asked VATGlobal about this and is still awaiting an answer to that question.
For organisations offering ecommerce solutions across EU this could become a useful resource to ensure compliance as they operate in new locations. The risk of failing to be VAT compliant can carry some heavy penalties and for that reason anything that mitigates that risk is worth noting.
