VAT, Gross, and Net Prices: Avoiding Costing Confusion
How tax handling affects supplier prices, margins, and restaurant costing accuracy.
Supplier invoices often include tax details that are easy to ignore and hard to fix later. Whether a price is gross or net changes the cost basis used in recipes.
Store both when possible
If an invoice includes gross price, net price, and tax, store all three. That preserves evidence and avoids forcing one accounting interpretation too early.
Karu's data model should let business-level tax settings guide defaults while allowing location or invoice-level overrides when reality differs.
Be consistent inside costing
The most important thing is consistency. Mixing gross and net supplier prices makes recipe costs unreliable.
The interface should show how a price was interpreted and let users correct it before approving AI-extracted invoice lines.
International products need flexibility
Karu targets many countries, so hardcoding one tax assumption would be a mistake. Currency and tax defaults can come from country selection, but users need control.
That balance keeps onboarding simple without trapping serious users later.
Operator checklist
Store gross, net, tax amount, and tax rate when available.
Use business defaults but allow overrides.
Show whether AI interpreted tax confidently.
Keep costing basis consistent across ingredients.
Sources
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