What is the need / problem ?
In some instances (Canada, US) fees are all entered and show without taxes included. Taxes are displayed in a separate tax line. On OFN-CAN (not sure about elsewhere) it appears that order adjustments to fees however are inclusive of taxes. They cannot simply delete the fee as the tax will calculate incorrectly. So when a user makes an adjustment to an order (ie: removes or adds a fee) they must first calculate the taxes for the adustment they want to make, and enter the amount inclusive of taxes. For an instance that NEVER includes taxes in prices or fees, this is very counter-intuitive. No user would think to do this. (Indeed, I struggled for 2 years to figure out why adjustments were wrong - and it never occured to me that this might be why)
Who does it impact ?
any user on OFN-CAN (and I suspect OFN-US) or other instances where taxes are excluded from prices, and who needs to adjust a fee on an order.
What is the current impact of the problem ?
Customers are being over-charged taxes anytime a fee needs to be removed, and under-charged if a fee needs to be added, and the user does not realize this. It is not legally compliant for certain - but it is a small difference in a shop that sells direct to consumer where orders are small and fees are small if they are used at all. (and thankfully - this is the majority of our users today). But in the 2 wholesale hubs we have right now - average orders are $800/week. A 20% transport fee is typical ($160), and that transport fee incurs 15% tax on average - or $24.00 per weekly order. So if that fee has to be removed from an order (because the buyer picked up their order versus having it delivered, or becaues the buyer placed 2 orders but should only be charged delivery on one of them…) the buyer is overcharged tax by $22.50.
2 hubs might be a small number now. But we are actively trying to help our users grow their sales with a few strategies, including: 1. linking them to wholesale markets with larger order sizes, and 2. helping them reach more distant markets and ship their goods. This fee problem gets in the way of both these strategies.
Further this problem (with fees not removing/adding taxes correctly) is worsened by the fact that we are currently promoting adjusting fees as a workaround for not being able to add taxes to a delivery methods fee. (Delivery methods fee taxes are set to an instance -wide tax rate - but in Canada (and the US I suspect) we need the rate to be given by the tax zone of the buyer).
What is the benefit of focusing on this ?
Taxation will be accurate and legally compliant. Larger wholesale hubs will remain with OFN. Shipping goods will be a viable strategy for OFN-CAN users.
Potential solutions that will solve the problem ?
[brainstorming to list feature candidates]
If an instance is configured to exclude taxes from prices, then the adjustments to orders must also exclude taxes from adjustments. ie - same methodology needs to follow through.
Selection of a feature candidate
[value x ease matric if needed]
T-shirt size of our selected feature candidate
Metrics to measure if need is satisfied after feature is implemented
Feature owners
Epic/projet where you can follow implementation
Connected wishlist and discovery discussions*
[list precedent discussions]