At a glance
- Tax depends on your country of business. How it is calculated, the slabs and the rules all follow the country — each has its own system and practices.
- Your country fills most of this in for you — regime, starting rates, financial year and currency.
- The tax regime is chosen once. After your first invoice is issued it cannot be changed.
- Rates belong to items. Changing a rate never alters an invoice already issued.
- The financial year drives everything dated — reports, the trial balance and document numbering.
- All of it is on one page: Accounting → Settings.
On this page:
1Where the settings are
Accounting comes with every business pack. You need the admin role to change its settings.
| What | Where it is set |
|---|---|
| Country, currency, financial year | Tune up → Appearance → Country of business |
| Tax regime, your state, rounding, print details | Accounting → Settings |
| Tax rates, and the rate each item uses | Items & Tax Rates — linked from Accounting → Settings |
| Document numbering | Accounting → Settings → Numbering |
The strip at the top of Accounting Settings always shows the four answers in force: Tax, Currency, Basis and Round off.
If you chose your country when you finished setting up, most of this page is already right. See Choose your type of business and country.
2Choose the tax regime
No two countries tax a sale the same way. One splits a single rate between a central and a state authority; another charges one VAT; another has no national rate at all. So the calculation, the tax slabs and what must be printed on a document all depend on your country of business — and Filantis follows that country’s rules and practices rather than applying one formula everywhere.
That set of rules is the tax regime. It decides what an item and a customer are asked for, and how one rate becomes the tax actually charged on a line. The 18% below is only an illustration; your own slabs come from your country.
| Regime | Item carries | Customer carries | One 18% rate becomes |
|---|---|---|---|
| India — GST | HSN / SAC | GSTIN | CGST 9% + SGST 9%, or IGST 18% |
| VAT | — | VAT number | VAT 18% |
| United States — sales tax | Tax category | Resale certificate | Sales Tax 18% |
| Australia — GST | — | ABN | GST 18% |
| No tax | — | — | Nothing at all |
- Open Accounting → Settings and find the Tax regime card.
- Under How tax is charged, pick the regime for your country.
- In India, type Your own state. In the United States, type the Jurisdiction name — “Texas” — that prints against the tax on each document.
- Click Save changes.
One country’s rule, as an example: GST in India
This split exists only under Indian GST. A VAT country charges one VAT on the line; a United States business charges the sales tax of its jurisdiction; an Australian business charges one GST. Each is calculated by its own country’s rule.
Choose this before you issue your first invoice. Afterwards it is fixed, because an issued invoice records the tax exactly as it was charged — switching would leave two incompatible shapes of tax inside one year’s returns.
3Set your tax rates
Tax slabs are different in every country, so the list you start with is your own country’s: the GST slabs in India, the standard, reduced and zero VAT bands of a European country, GST and GST-free in Australia. In the United States the list starts empty, because there is no nationwide rate — you add the rates of your own state and city.
- From Accounting → Settings, follow the link to Items & Tax Rates.
- In the Tax rates card, add a rate with a name and a percentage — “GST 18%”, “VAT 20% standard”.
- On each item, choose its Tax rate, or No tax.
You can still override the rate on a single invoice line, and bill a free-text line that has no item behind it — see Raise an invoice, proforma or credit note.
The starting rates are a convenience, not tax advice. Tax law differs by country and changes over time — check with your accountant which rates and rules apply to what you sell, where you sell it.
4The financial year
Your financial year follows your country: April to March in India and the United Kingdom, July to June in Australia, January to December in the United States and most of Europe.
Reports
Open on the current financial year, with a button for each earlier one.
The books
The trial balance and the day book show this financial year unless you pick other dates.
Numbering
Each kind of document has its own number series for each financial year.
The financial year, like the tax regime and the rates, stays as it is once an invoice has been issued. Settle your country first.
5Document numbering
The Numbering card lists each series — invoices, credit notes, receipts and the rest — with where it starts this financial year.
- Type a Prefix. Click {fy} or {yyyy} to drop the year into it, so it does not have to be retyped every year.
- Set the Next number. A business carrying on its old books enters whatever its last book had reached.
- Choose how many Digits the number is padded to, and click Set. The card shows what the next document will be called.
- {fy} is the series’ financial year, the same on every document in it. {yyyy} is the calendar year of issue — on an April year the two differ from January to March.
- Numbers only go forward. Once a document has been issued, a number somebody is holding can never be issued twice.
- Each series saves on its own button.
6Accrual or cash
The Reporting basis card decides when a sale becomes revenue in your books.
Accrual
Revenue when it is earned — the day the invoice is issued, the night the guest sleeps. The standard for hotels and for larger businesses.
Who owes you is in the books
Cash
Revenue when the money arrives. Simpler, and open to many small businesses. An unpaid bill has not been recognised yet.
No receivables in the books
Changing the basis does not rewrite entries already posted — it applies from then on, so your books would hold a period of each. Talk to your accountant before changing it mid-year.
7Rounding and print details
Rounding the total
Switch on Round the total on invoices and credit notes, choose what to round to — the whole unit is the usual answer — and a Direction. “Always up” never charges a customer less than the figures add to. The difference prints as its own Round off line and is posted to its own account, so the books still balance to the last decimal.
Your details, as they print
- Business name, your own tax number, Full address, telephone and email — the head of every invoice, draft and receipt.
- Printed under the totals — who to pay and how. Your line breaks are kept.
- Terms and conditions — the small print. Sample terms are filled in; edit them or clear the box.
- Paper size and your logo (PNG or JPEG, up to 3 MB).
Currency is shown here but set on Tune up → Appearance, with the date format. A business trades in one currency; nothing is converted, and every stored amount records which currency it was.
8Questions
The tax regime says “This can no longer be changed”.
A document has already been issued. Issued invoices keep the tax they were charged, so the regime is locked from then on. Rates can still be added.
A tax rate has changed by law. What do I do?
Add the new rate and point your items at it. Invoices already issued keep the old rate; everything billed from then on uses the new one.
We are not registered for tax.
Choose No tax. Nothing is charged and nothing about tax is printed.
A customer is in another Indian state. Do I pick IGST myself?
No. Put the state on the customer’s contact record. Filantis compares it with your own on every line and charges CGST + SGST or IGST by itself.
Can I restart numbering every year?
Each series is kept per financial year, and a prefix with {fy} names the year for you — so the new year’s documents are told apart from the old ones without retyping anything.
Accounts that already know your tax
Every country has its own tax system, and Filantis follows yours: GST that splits itself by state, VAT numbers on the right documents, a financial year that starts when yours does — next to the phone system and the front desk.
- Your countryRegime, rates and year set for you.
- Locked historyAn issued invoice never changes.
- One systemBilling, books and phones together.
What to do next
With tax in place, bill your first customer: Raise an invoice, proforma or credit note. Then record the payment.
Still stuck?
Write to support@filantis.com with your workspace name and what you were trying to do.