What is changing
HMRC is bringing in a new revenue calculation model on 1st August 2023
Further information is obtained here Alcohol Duty: rate changes - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
In order for the WMS to accomodate these changes a number of changes will have to be made, these are released in WMS v6.8 which is available from April 2023.
We strongly urge customers to test v6.8 as soon as possible to ensure that we can upgrade your live system prior to 1st July 2023. Failure to do so will result in the changes highlighted below not being able to be made.
Timetable
Date | |
|---|---|
Vision Warehousing v6.8 | Released |
All customers must be running v6.8 on WMS. | 1st July 2023 |
Customers wishing pre-update change checks OR those wishing their test system to have the final update run. | ASAP after v6.8 released and installed AND Before 1st July 2023 |
Live HMRC Change | 31/07/2023 from 2pm Customers will be allocated a slot from 2pm onwards You would then not be able to despatch until the following day |
Further information will be released on this page when it becomes available.
Customer Requirements
Customer need to :
Have WMS v6.8 installed into your live system prior to 1st July 2023
Ensure that an ABV is provided for all stocks and recorded on the stock record, for any items which need to have an ABV
Customers need to audit their excise tax, commodity and product setup to ensure that they have the correct items in the correct product type, commodity code and excise tax code.
Existing Functionality
We would strongly advise that customers have the strength and size checking switched on against the commodity code / tax code, this ensures ABV is recorded on the product record and receipt. Despite this being in the system for in excess of 10 years some customers do not have this switched on.
Failure to Check Prior to the upgrade
There will be customers who do not wish to check their setup prior to the implementation of the new regime, however please be aware that failure to do so will result in you potentially making the wrong declarations to HMRC and pay the wrong duty.
If you have gone through the implementation and find that the above is the case then your only course of action is to remove, re-rotate and reland the product stock again.
Warehousing v6.8 Changes
Strength ABV
Strengths can already be submitted to the warehouse in the EDI Pre Advice message PA XML Structure.
Small Producers
For identification of small producers we will be using the ‘Brand’ field (which is used to store brand or producer).
This field was previously used for HMRC submissions indicating the brand for ARC and Export movements, however from v6.8 this will become more substantially important with the changes necessary for small producer relief, therefore one of the main changes coming in v6.8 will be making it easier for users to find and select brands to avoid duplications, and also an easy way of maintaining and merging existing brands.
Tidy up your Data
Warehouses need to plan to use this new version to tidy up data in preparation for go live and the setup of the new small producer relief tax certificates.
We have provided a Brand merge/ update facility within v6.8, which will allow you to correct spelling mistakes and duplicates of the brand field.
Planned Update and Options
The sections below detail what the plans are for the upgrade on the 31st July 2023 along with an optional pre-update plan that customers can opt into.
Is there a cost?
Yes, there is a cost and it is based on your volume of products and stocks. Please speak to customer services to discuss.
Unfortunately this is a data update that could only be done by yourselves but it will involve you re-landing all the stock on your system.
Optional Pre-Update Plan
The idea of the pre-update is to help customers be ready for the changes on 1st August and to be able to resolve any issues prior to that time with stock data which is far easier than trying to do it afterwards.
What this plan will provide you is:
Turning on all strength checking. This involves adding and correcting the commodity codes and excise tax codes for the correct strengths and then turning them on.
Providing you with a report of all products and all stocks which do not match the commodity/tax strengths or sizes.
Providing you with a list of any old commodity codes where you are still using them for products and stocks.
Archiving products which have no stock and are invalid.
HMRC Update - Data Change plans
We are planning to offer to automate the required changes for the rates structure to Warehouse and Commerce customers.
This would have to work off the Strength ABV fields in the applications, as such we urge customers to start using this field correctly if not doing so already and to ensure that the field is set correctly for all historical records. Where this is not done, for any records without this set we may have to assume the highest permitted strength for their tax or commodity code in order to switch it over to the new rate.
On the day updates
This script will be run for warehouses at a cut off given by Ontech on 31/07/2023
When this implementation starts, no movements can be made on the system after this is done until the following day.
Where customers upgrade their test system, the below can be run within the test system prior to the go live day, this is available to customers with the pre-update plan only
What is changed or updated?
New tax codes will be created with the correct rates & relief setup, commodity codes (along with quotas & import document setup) will be created from existing data and linked to the new codes
4xx tax codes & linked commodities will be archived
Product fixes
Cider products will be corrected to ‘Intermediate' product type
Products with invalid strengths (0 or >100) will be updated from stocks with a valid strength
Products with a duty paid tax code setup will be corrected from the stocks with a correct tax code, this relates to old products setup before the product type and excise tax code were linked.
Low alcohol products will be linked to the new ‘Low Alcohol’ product type
Sparkling ciders with a strength between 5.51 and 8.49 will be linked to the new ‘Other Fermented Products’ product type
Made wines (42x tax codes) will be converted across to the ‘Other Fermented Products’ tax code also
Products remaining which aren’t valid for conversion due to incorrect strengths and have no stock will be archived
Remaining products with a 4xx tax code will be converted to map to the correct new tax code
Stocks will be updated to link to the new tax codes
Pending pre advices will have the tax & commodity updated from the updated product record