Tax in nouz is intentionally simple: one default rate that applies to most of your sales, with the option to override per product for the items that have different rates. There's no separate "tax engine" with jurisdictions and lookups — the assumption is that you know your country's rates and which products carry which.
01 The default rate
On Settings → Business profile, the Default tax rate field is the value nouz pre-fills when you create a new product or a manual revenue entry. For most Austrian shops it's 20% (standard VAT). German shops are typically 19%. Dutch shops 21%. UK shops 20%.
You can change the default any time. Changing it doesn't backdate to old entries — every revenue row has its own snapshot of the tax rate at the moment it was logged, so historical numbers stay honest. The new default only applies to entries you create from that moment forward. See Changing your tax rate mid-year for the full pattern.
02 Per-product overrides
Some products carry a different rate. Common examples:
- Takeaway food at 10% / 7% (Austria / Germany) — most cafés need both 20%/19% and the reduced rate, and the difference is per-product.
- Books and printed media at the reduced rate.
- Services exempt from VAT — set the rate to 0%.
- Alcohol at the standard rate, food at the reduced rate — restaurants typically need both.
On the product form, the Tax rate field overrides the default. Save the product and every future revenue entry that references it will use that rate. The snapshot on each revenue row stores the rate that was active at the moment of sale — so even if you bump the product's rate later, past sales keep their original rate.
03 Where it shows up in the P&L
Tax lives on its own line in the P&L, right under gross revenue. It's subtracted before you get to net revenue — the formula is:
Gross revenue − Tax − Transaction fees = Net revenue
In the day / week / month / year P&L views, the Tax line shows the sum of tax across every revenue entry in the period, computed per-entry using each entry's snapshot rate. Even if you have a mix of 20% standard and 10% reduced revenue on the same day, the math works correctly per-entry.
04 Revenue is gross
This is the single most common day-one mistake. The till total is gross (VAT included), and that's what nouz wants — €840 on a 20% VAT day means €840 in the BAR + EC fields. nouz will compute tax (€140) and show net revenue (€700). If you pre-subtract VAT and type €700, the P&L computes tax on €700 (€116.67) and shows net revenue of €583.33 — wrong in both directions.
When in doubt: whatever's on the till receipt is what you type. The till total is always gross.
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