How to access? "Apps" > Select "Amazon VCS"

2019-04-19_11h14_26.png

What is it?

The Lengow app for Amazon VCS will allow you to retrieve via API certain invoicing information (the VAT in particular) made available by Amazon for each order, and to provide Amazon with your own invoice (or credit note) for the end customer.
Lengow helps you at every step and shows you the process to return your document to Amazon within the deadlines requested by the marketplace.  

Amazon communication - January 2021

To meet a need of its Amazon Business customers who need to receive their invoices (or receipts) as soon as possible, Amazon introduced in July 2020 the Invoice Default Rate 
(IDR - Invoice Defect Rate rate which corresponds to all orders from Amazon Business customers for whom an invoice was not uploaded, within one business day of shipment, as a percentage of total Amazon Business customer orders).
  • From April 5, 2021, all professional sellers will be required to meet this 5% target to sell on Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.de, Amazon.fr, Amazon.it and Amazon.es. Failure to meet this upcoming performance requirement may result in account deactivation. 
Please note that invoices sent via Buyer / Seller messaging do not comply with Amazon Business invoicing policy, and will therefore be considered missing and will negatively affect your invoice default rate.
Amazon also offers an automated invoicing service (Amazon Invoicing) as an alternative.
Note that e-commerce CMS’ cannot natively manage the settings required to perform the VCS actions. Therefore, this VCS program is not implemented on our modules Prestashop, Magento, Shopify, Shopware, Woocommerce, etc.

How does it work?

Pre-requisites

To use Amazon VCS, make sure: 

  • To have a Professional Seller Account on Amazon 
  • If you have an individual seller account, you need to upgrade it to a professional seller account. 
Amazon VCS only supports products that are sent from the EU to the EU to generate a VAT invoice. However, for orders shipped directly to the EU from a country outside of the EU, Amazon VCS issues a receipt (i.e. "proof of purchase", not a VAT invoice) on which the VAT calculation does not appear.

Step 1: Activate Amazon VCS on Amazon

✅ Follow these steps in your Amazon BO to activate the VCS service on your account: 

  1. Enter any VAT / GST registration numbers you have

  2. Enter a default shipping address

  3. Enter a default Product Tax Code. Ex : A_GEN_STANDARD is the code for "always taxable at the standard rate". (These codes can be completed directly from your Lengow feeds for more detailed attribution on your products. To do so: use the "Product Tax Code" attribute.)  

    Select the type of invoicing: Self Invoicing 

  4. Enter the invoice activation date (Choose the date from which you will have to download invoices for each shipment. Often the same activation date as for VCS). 

Amazon Invoicing 

If you have chosen the type of invoicing "Amazon Invoicing" (meaning that it is Amazon which will manage the edition of your invoices) check the points below: 
  • Lengow's "orders" API: "IsAmazonInvoiced" (or is-amazon-invoiced) parameter. If the value is true, it indicates that you have enabled VCS.
  • Complete the "Product Tax Code" attribute in each of your Amazon feeds in Lengow if you wish to modify for some products or all of your products the default value already defined in your Amazon BO when choosing "Amazon Invoicing". (values are mandatory, eg values "A_GEN_TAX") 
  • All prices sent to Amazon must remain "VAT included" even if you use the VCS service  

3cdd0dd6-faf1-4ceb-9408-5f44907c72da.png

 

Step 2: Activate the VCS App in Lengow

✅ Follow these steps to use Amazon VCS on Lengow: 

  1. Activate the VCS App in your Lengow’s Account : « Apps » tab > search for « Amazon VCS » and click on « Connect Amazon VCS »  

  2. Go to your Amazon feed > settings > Launch step > orders and enable Amazon VCS.  

480d09e4-7d33-41bc-9d57-a351a26309d2.png

Step 3: Manage Amazon VCS with Lengow

Once an order is in shipped status, the billing/credit note information is immediately available through our API so you can use it for your invoices/credit notes. 

✅ Here is the Lengow workflow: 

1/ Retrieving invoice information

(Lengow API)

Having chosen the "self invoicing" invoicing option, you must first retrieve the invoicing data via our API. 
This data is part of a report called VIDR by Amazon and will be useful for you to create your invoice.

From the Lengow solution, in the orders tab, you can find in each order an icon indicating the status of the billing information that Amazon sends us back (for invoice or credit note to be edited). 

When invoice information is availble for upload the staus is: 

  • Invoice Pending / Credit Note Pending

Consult our API documentation to see how to retrieve it.
VIDR = VAT Invoice Data Report

Amazon recommends that merchants schedule VIDR retrieval at least twice a day so that invoices can be uploaded within a maximum of 12 hours after the order has been shipped.

Lengow does not generate an invoice directly for Amazon. You must retrieve the VIDR report which contains the data allowing you to edit your invoice. Consult our API doc, or Amazon doc

2/ Editing your invoice

(Merchant back office)

Once you have retrieved this billing information, you can create your invoice and customize it.

For information, here is the list of mandatory information for Amazon:  

  1. Registered company name and address of the seller

  2. VAT identification number of the seller (if applicable)

  3. Complete official name and address of the customer

  4. VAT identification number of the customer. Only necessary if the customer is responsible for the taxation of the purchase order (e.g., for intra-Community delivery, reverse charge procedure). Customer VAT Number is provided in VIDR.

  5. Invoice date/service date

  6. Invoice number

  7. Order date

  8. Product name

  9. Purchase quantity

  10. Unit price of the item (without VAT)

  11. VAT rate applied

  12. Discounts/promotions, if not included in the unit price

  13. VAT amount

  14. Justification/references if the customer is responsible for the payment of VAT. Citation is a legal text required on an invoice when Customer owes VAT, in other words, when VAT charged by the Seller is zero percent. This can happen in cases such as Domestic Reverse Charge, export out of EU, or intra-community supply of goods

3/ Upload your invoice in Lengow API

Once you have created your invoice / credit voucher, you can upload it to our API directly via a POST (see our API documentation)

Then it is sent to Amazon. 
Amazon then returns a status. You can follow the status of your invoice from the Lengow solution or via our API.  

  • Invoice Processing: Amazon processes the invoice. 

  • Invoice_Uploaded: Amazon has received and posted the invoice. When you see this status, the end customer then has the possibility of downloading the invoice from his Amazon customer account. 

  • Invoice_Rejected: Amazon received the invoice, but there are errors (ex: "Multiple shipments": the order ID has multiple shipments. Please indicate the shipment ID) - See images 2 & 3 for status  

Your uploaded invoice is available in Lengow on the order's page.
Amazon Documentation
Sellers must upload their invoice in PDF format for all orders within 24 hours after shipping. If the invoices are not uploaded within 24 hours, Amazon may suspend the seller's access to VCS.  
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How to access? "Apps" > Select "Amazon VCS"

2019-04-19_11h14_26.png

What is it?

The Lengow app for Amazon VCS will allow you to retrieve via API certain invoicing information (the VAT in particular) made available by Amazon for each order, and to provide Amazon with your own invoice (or credit note) for the end customer.
Lengow helps you at every step and shows you the process to return your document to Amazon within the deadlines requested by the marketplace.  

Amazon communication - January 2021

To meet a need of its Amazon Business customers who need to receive their invoices (or receipts) as soon as possible, Amazon introduced in July 2020 the Invoice Default Rate 
(IDR - Invoice Defect Rate rate which corresponds to all orders from Amazon Business customers for whom an invoice was not uploaded, within one business day of shipment, as a percentage of total Amazon Business customer orders).
  • From April 5, 2021, all professional sellers will be required to meet this 5% target to sell on Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.de, Amazon.fr, Amazon.it and Amazon.es. Failure to meet this upcoming performance requirement may result in account deactivation. 
Please note that invoices sent via Buyer / Seller messaging do not comply with Amazon Business invoicing policy, and will therefore be considered missing and will negatively affect your invoice default rate.
Amazon also offers an automated invoicing service (Amazon Invoicing) as an alternative.
Note that e-commerce CMS’ cannot natively manage the settings required to perform the VCS actions. Therefore, this VCS program is not implemented on our modules Prestashop, Magento, Shopify, Shopware, Woocommerce, etc.

How does it work?

Pre-requisites

To use Amazon VCS, make sure: 

  • To have a Professional Seller Account on Amazon 
  • If you have an individual seller account, you need to upgrade it to a professional seller account. 
Amazon VCS only supports products that are sent from the EU to the EU to generate a VAT invoice. However, for orders shipped directly to the EU from a country outside of the EU, Amazon VCS issues a receipt (i.e. "proof of purchase", not a VAT invoice) on which the VAT calculation does not appear.

Step 1: Activate Amazon VCS on Amazon

✅ Follow these steps in your Amazon BO to activate the VCS service on your account: 

  1. Enter any VAT / GST registration numbers you have

  2. Enter a default shipping address

  3. Enter a default Product Tax Code. Ex : A_GEN_STANDARD is the code for "always taxable at the standard rate". (These codes can be completed directly from your Lengow feeds for more detailed attribution on your products. To do so: use the "Product Tax Code" attribute.)  

    Select the type of invoicing: Self Invoicing 

  4. Enter the invoice activation date (Choose the date from which you will have to download invoices for each shipment. Often the same activation date as for VCS). 

Amazon Invoicing 

If you have chosen the type of invoicing "Amazon Invoicing" (meaning that it is Amazon which will manage the edition of your invoices) check the points below: 
  • Lengow's "orders" API: "IsAmazonInvoiced" (or is-amazon-invoiced) parameter. If the value is true, it indicates that you have enabled VCS.
  • Complete the "Product Tax Code" attribute in each of your Amazon feeds in Lengow if you wish to modify for some products or all of your products the default value already defined in your Amazon BO when choosing "Amazon Invoicing". (values are mandatory, eg values "A_GEN_TAX") 
  • All prices sent to Amazon must remain "VAT included" even if you use the VCS service  

3cdd0dd6-faf1-4ceb-9408-5f44907c72da.png

 

Step 2: Activate the VCS App in Lengow

✅ Follow these steps to use Amazon VCS on Lengow: 

  1. Activate the VCS App in your Lengow’s Account : « Apps » tab > search for « Amazon VCS » and click on « Connect Amazon VCS »  

  2. Go to your Amazon feed > settings > Launch step > orders and enable Amazon VCS.  

480d09e4-7d33-41bc-9d57-a351a26309d2.png

Step 3: Manage Amazon VCS with Lengow

Once an order is in shipped status, the billing/credit note information is immediately available through our API so you can use it for your invoices/credit notes. 

✅ Here is the Lengow workflow: 

1/ Retrieving invoice information

(Lengow API)

Having chosen the "self invoicing" invoicing option, you must first retrieve the invoicing data via our API. 
This data is part of a report called VIDR by Amazon and will be useful for you to create your invoice.

From the Lengow solution, in the orders tab, you can find in each order an icon indicating the status of the billing information that Amazon sends us back (for invoice or credit note to be edited). 

When invoice information is availble for upload the staus is: 

  • Invoice Pending / Credit Note Pending

Consult our API documentation to see how to retrieve it.
VIDR = VAT Invoice Data Report

Amazon recommends that merchants schedule VIDR retrieval at least twice a day so that invoices can be uploaded within a maximum of 12 hours after the order has been shipped.

Lengow does not generate an invoice directly for Amazon. You must retrieve the VIDR report which contains the data allowing you to edit your invoice. Consult our API doc, or Amazon doc

2/ Editing your invoice

(Merchant back office)

Once you have retrieved this billing information, you can create your invoice and customize it.

For information, here is the list of mandatory information for Amazon:  

  1. Registered company name and address of the seller

  2. VAT identification number of the seller (if applicable)

  3. Complete official name and address of the customer

  4. VAT identification number of the customer. Only necessary if the customer is responsible for the taxation of the purchase order (e.g., for intra-Community delivery, reverse charge procedure). Customer VAT Number is provided in VIDR.

  5. Invoice date/service date

  6. Invoice number

  7. Order date

  8. Product name

  9. Purchase quantity

  10. Unit price of the item (without VAT)

  11. VAT rate applied

  12. Discounts/promotions, if not included in the unit price

  13. VAT amount

  14. Justification/references if the customer is responsible for the payment of VAT. Citation is a legal text required on an invoice when Customer owes VAT, in other words, when VAT charged by the Seller is zero percent. This can happen in cases such as Domestic Reverse Charge, export out of EU, or intra-community supply of goods

3/ Upload your invoice in Lengow API

Once you have created your invoice / credit voucher, you can upload it to our API directly via a POST (see our API documentation)

Then it is sent to Amazon. 
Amazon then returns a status. You can follow the status of your invoice from the Lengow solution or via our API.  

  • Invoice Processing: Amazon processes the invoice. 

  • Invoice_Uploaded: Amazon has received and posted the invoice. When you see this status, the end customer then has the possibility of downloading the invoice from his Amazon customer account. 

  • Invoice_Rejected: Amazon received the invoice, but there are errors (ex: "Multiple shipments": the order ID has multiple shipments. Please indicate the shipment ID) - See images 2 & 3 for status  

Your uploaded invoice is available in Lengow on the order's page.
Amazon Documentation
Sellers must upload their invoice in PDF format for all orders within 24 hours after shipping. If the invoices are not uploaded within 24 hours, Amazon may suspend the seller's access to VCS.  
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