Prepare your SAP for call-off stock reporting

4 February 2020

New reporting obligations regarding call-off stock

"Quick Fixes" to the EU VAT Directive bring a harmonized process for intra-community (consignment) stocks (Article 17a of EU VAT Directive).  

Do you have call-off stocks?

In the call-off stock scenario, seller transfers goods to a warehouse in another EU country belonging to a customer upon prior agreement. Customer can claim these goods later. Storage in a call-off stock is considered as a “short-term” interruption of an intra-community transaction.  From 1 January 2020, seller should report to the national tax administration of such transfer. Failure to report it in time might result in a negligence penalty.

What does it mean for your SAP?

Due to these changes suppliers and customers have to maintain special registers for call-off stocks where transfer of the goods and call-off stock movements are recorded. VAT numbers of consignment customers must be listed in a new segment of recapitulative statement (EC Sales list).

This process requires additional configurations in SD and FI modules of SAP.

In SD module, SAP team should configure processes for consignment fill-up, consignment issue, consignment pickup and consignment return, ensuring  correct identification of the tax departure country. Changes to SAP should ensure correct determination of tax codes and VAT numbers for billing.

In FI module, "Quick Fix" requires a special tax code setup that enables reporting VAT numbers of call-off stock customers in the EC sales list. More detailed technical specifications are yet to come, dependent on the legislative process in some countries implementing new requirements.

We are ready to assist you with assessing tax compliance of new configurations, reviewing guidelines and training users.

By Jari Kärkkäinen and Alexandra Shtromberg