Cs-Cart Progress: December 2018 Video Report

This is a video report from Ilya Makarov, the Head of Product for CS-Cart and Multi-Vendor. The report covers what our team has done in December 2018, and our plans for the future.
CS-Cart Progress: What We’ve Done in December 2018 - YouTube


This time we’ve added links to specific parts of the video.

What we’ve done:
00:38—new add-on: Stores and Pickup Points.
03:16—improvement to shipping methods with manual rate calculation: location-dependent shipping time.
04:37—for mobile devices: search button in responsive admin panel and swipable images on the storefront.
05:50—the choice whether or not to include taxes in vendor commission.
07:19—improvements to Common Products for Vendors in Multi-Vendor Plus.
09:07—a different color for vendors’ admin panel.
11:02—improvements to the management of admin user group privileges; ability to remove menus from vendor area.
13:12—mobile application now uses its own registration and profile editing pages instead of opening the store’s pages in WebView.

What we’re working on:
14:29—upcoming versions: 4.9.3 and 4.10.1.
15:04—plans for the Notification Center that displays all the information about what’s going on in the store.
16:51—show/hide certain blocks on mobile devices.
17:56—variations and product groups.
20:42—improved checkout.

cs-cart finally started improving its product (speaking about user experience). Better later then never..

Thank you very much for sharing the progress of cs-cart development. I really appreciate that.
Regarding Lite Checkout:
20:42—improved checkout.
Could you add the checkbox in the checkout like this: "I want to receive Vat invoice" or with any other text that indicates that the customer is a business entity.
If the checkbox is checked, the user should see additional hidden inputs, e.g. for the Company Name, EU Tax number etc.
This is the way most of the EU e-commerce platforms work.
This issue was mentioned multiple times on the forum and stayed unresolved for many years.
The example of how it works can be found here:
https://ibb.co/FKj71ST
This checkbox should be placed in the cscart_orders table not in the customer table. This way the customer during each order can decide what kind of document (receipt/invoice) they want to get.
Please let me know if you will implement this.
Best regards,
Jacek

This is the way most of the EU e-commerce platforms work.

VAT-invoice is issued only to VAT-registered buyers. All other buyers get the so-called simplified invoice where VAT is not specially pointed out. Or a tax-free check is also issued if the client intends to leave the EU. If he/she stays in EU and is not VAT-registered no VAT is refunded by crossing the border.

If the buyer has entered in his client profile a valid Firm ID and VAT ID, the latter will be checked against VIES and a VAT-exempt or Vat-differentiating invoice will be issued - depending on the circumstances and the location of the incorporated byuer.

So it's not that simple as check-out only. First thing to do for CS-Cart is to allow a Taxes and Location access to vendors in a MV milieu.

And they even don't understand that this should be done.

What is more tragic is that most of us also do not care and will not ask for this functionality. By now CS-Cart architects will consider a new feature only if requested by a serious number of clients. Unfortunately, now, this forum is dying out, so don't expect something to be done.

Learn Russian and go to the Russian forum where your voice might be heard and you'll get 50 likes.

As our proverb says, who pays he orders the music - no matter what. And we'll be listening to what others have paid for,

Imago, you're completely right regarding the way it should be done.

However, implementing selection for the type of document the customer wants would be sufficient for us and in my opinion for many other customers. Here is why:

  1. 90% of our sales is from our country. For us a tax exemption feature is a nice to have feature but not crucial. It could be implemented easily (below is the explanation how).
  2. We have integrated cs-cart with an ERP system which is responsible for issuing invoices and receipts. The only thing missing to properly import each order is the information if the customer needs an invoice for his company or receipt. If the user needs an invoice, then he/she should fill out additional information with: company name, VAT number, company address. Then during the import to the ERP system I'm able to differentiate it an build a custom logic in the ERP connector.

If you would implement additional invoice inputs (e.g Select box: Do you want to receive Invoice? or Radio Button: What type of document do you want to receive: Invoice/Receipt) and place a hook, then the addon developers could easily create the VIESA addon and any other features which are required by the community but are not implemented by the cs-cart team because they are focusing on the Russian market or other features.

Could anyone from cs-cart team reply?

Uservoice topics regarding this idea:

https://cscart.uservoice.com/forums/134344-cs-cart/suggestions/2073567-vies-online-eu-vat-number-verification

https://cscart.uservoice.com/forums/134344-cs-cart/suggestions/4030412-vat-tax-toggle-button

https://cscart.uservoice.com/forums/134344-cs-cart/suggestions/1331165-for-italy-vat-iva-and-fiscal-number-fields-inc

@tbirsneth

Because many customers outside of EU don't even know what VAT is. It's literally a "foreign concept". In Canada it is referred to as PST and GST. Probably other acronyms in other places.

Seems to me that a user's profile could have a checkbox asking if this is a business account. If checked, then more fields open up to be filled and the admin should have the ability to define the names and whether they are required or not. If not a business account, then all of it would be hidden.

Then, that data could be integrated into the invoices/packing slips and other reporting as needed.

Posts from the forum:

https://forum.cs-cart.com/topic/42200-why-is-there-no-company-registration-and-vat-number-in-cs-cart/

https://forum.cs-cart.com/topic/50642-hide-vat/

And many many more, even on forum.cs-cart.ru

There is no better time to implement this, than during checkout refactoring.

Thank you very much for sharing the progress of cs-cart development. I really appreciate that.
Regarding Lite Checkout:
20:42—improved checkout.
Could you add the checkbox in the checkout like this: "I want to receive Vat invoice" or with any other text that indicates that the customer is a business entity.
If the checkbox is checked, the user should see additional hidden inputs, e.g. for the Company Name, EU Tax number etc.
This is the way most of the EU e-commerce platforms work.
This issue was mentioned multiple times on the forum and stayed unresolved for many years.
The example of how it works can be found here:
This checkbox should be placed in the cscart_orders table not in the customer table. This way the customer during each order can decide what kind of document (receipt/invoice) they want to get.
Please let me know if you will implement this.
Best regards,
Jacek

Facing same issue but no response from anyone and couldnt find this topic troubleshooting in google.