You can now mix item conditions in batches and purchases

What's the deal with mixed conditions?

Let's go back a few years. Since we started development on Bricqer, we have had support for the VAT margin scheme built-in. For those unfamiliar, the VAT margin scheme is primarily used by EU-based sellers and allows them to apply VAT to items based on their profit margin, rather than their actual selling price. This is particularly useful for second-hand items, and allows sellers to enhance their profit margins by applying a smaller VAT rate to margin goods.

Traditionally, Bricqer has supported the VAT margin scheme by automatically determining whether a product was a margin good based solely on its condition: used items were treated as margin goods, while new items were considered VAT goods subject to the standard VAT rate. To be able to handle the margin scheme for these items correctly, Bricqer enforced a single condition for all items in a batch and purchase.

Even if you didn't use the margin scheme, this approach meant that you could not mix new and used items in a single batch.

Why did we change this approach?

Our approach to handling margin goods led to some confusion and frustration over time:

• US sellers do not employ the margin scheme. They should not have to worry about it and just be able to mix and match conditions.
• Not all EU sellers use the margin scheme. They should just be able to mix and match conditions as well.
• Our existing margin scheme support relied solely on the condition of an item, making it impossible to upload new-condition margin goods. This needed to be improved on.
• Uploading of inventory from other programs (such as BrickStore) required some users to create multiple purchases to split new and used items. We can do better than that!

This update aims to address these concerns and improve the user experience for everyone.

What we've improved

We've made some major improvements to the inventory workflow, fixing all of the above concerns. Let's take a closer look at what we changed.

Improvements for US-based sellers and sellers that do not use the margin scheme

Great news, you've been waiting for this! You can now create purchases and batches and set an optional default condition. You can override the default condition by selecting another condition when adding new items.

Improvements for sellers that use the margin scheme

Previously, Bricqer automatically determined whether a product was a margin good based solely on its condition: used items were treated as margin goods, while new items were considered VAT goods. This is still the default behavior. If you'd like some more flexibility, including the ability to mix conditions in a single purchase or batch, you can change when orders are invoiced.

By default, orders are invoiced immediately when an order is imported into Bricqer. However, you can now choose to invoice orders when they are marked as shipped instead. If you enable this option, Bricqer will generate pro-forma invoices and issue the final invoice after you've picked the items. Bricqer can determine which items are margin goods based on where they were picked from. This means you can now invoice orders with mixed conditions without having to create multiple purchases.

To change your invoicing preferences, go to settingsSettings and click receiptInvoicing & VAT. On this screen, you will now find the option to change when invoices are generated.

Thank you for your feedback

This update reflects our ongoing commitment to improving our inventory management tools and directly addresses feedback we've received from our users.

The improvements to how we manage margin goods have been long in the making due to the degree to which the margin scheme was embedded in our core feature set. I'm extremely happy we've been able to release this update now. I think we've tackled concerns from users that don't use the margin scheme, as well as concerns from bigger stores that require more flexibility in how they can handle margin goods.

We're very much looking forward to releasing lots of other improvements this year. Stay tuned!