Airbnb Channelmanager VAT

  • Resolved Oliver Jusinger

    (@jusol)


    1 day, 9 hours ago

    Currently the e4j Channelmanager creates a setting “VAT/taxes” at Airbnb every time I upload rates to airbnb. If I delete this setting at airbnb, it is recreated the next time I upload rates.

    Guests expect VAT to be included in prices, separate VAT makes no sense. I don’t want to separate VAT at airbnb.

    In vik booking, I have configured taxes to create correct invoices, but I don’t want to export them. Since we have different taxes for services (e.g. cleaning) and renting, a correct tax export to airbnb is not even possible.

    I think the airbnb channel manager should at least have an option “(don’t) export VAT” in the rate upload.

    Since your first-level support (AI?) just delivers generic answers and insists this is an Airbnb setting problem, I asked Airbnb and got this answer:

    “I have just contacted our technical team, and they have confirmed that this entire pricing and tax structure is controlled exclusively through the API data provided by your channel manager. Since your connection is managed externally through e4j, Airbnb Support on our end has absolutely no access to modify your software configurations, pricing arrays, or synchronization settings. Everything you are seeing—including the fact that the VAT parameter is being transmitted as a separate line item and that the tourist taxes have been removed—is entirely determined by the data that e4j sends to us.

    To optimize this and achieve the gross pricing structure you require for the EU/DACH region, you will need to contact your channel manager’s support team directly. You should instruct them to adjust the API mapping so that VAT is no longer sent as a separate tax array object, but instead your flat, all-inclusive gross price is transmitted. We want to ensure that your pricing is displayed exactly as your guests expect, but the correction must be made either in your e4j dashboard or by e4j’s developer support team.”

    The page I need help with: [log in to see the link]

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)
  • Plugin Author e4jvikwp

    (@e4jvikwp)

    1 day, 7 hours ago

    Hello,

    Thanks for your message. We understand you’re having issues related to the Pro/commercial version of VikBooking and our E4jConnect Channel Manager service. In order to not go off-topic on this forum, we kindly ask you to open a Support Ticket from any of our websites. Our “first-level support” is definitely not powered by AI, you will always get replies from humans, and AI may only be used to translate or format our answers.

    We would like to add some info to our message to answer your questions, but we shall continue on a private ticket from any of our platforms, whether it’s E4jConnect or VikWP, by using your own account details.

    Our Channel Manager reads your Airbnb listings from your connected host account, and so it knows whether your listings are “eligible for taxes” (VAT/GST). In case your listings are returned by Airbnb as “tax eligible”, what’s happening in your case is indeed the expected behaviour. If you have configured a tax rate in your PMS VikBooking, then every time rates will be pushed to Airbnb, our systems will also carry the VAT/GST information. This is why you always get back taxes on your Airbnb account.

    Airbnb will always receive rates before taxes by your Channel Manager, no matter if the PMS VikBooking was configured to work with prices before or after tax. We understand you would like to show rates inclusive of taxes to your guests, but that’s how Airbnb works in terms of API connections with their certified partners. Rates will be always tax exclusive, and taxes (we are only talking about VAT/GST here) will be configured separately at “listing-level” by using a dedicated API.

    If you contact us through our websites with a support ticket, we can explain the possible solutions for “stopping” (preventing) the Channel Manager from pushing to Airbnb the tax information every time, but please notice that what’s happening to your case is definitely correct and required by Airbnb. As we said, if your listings are “tax eligible”, Airbnb require the CM to submit the tax information (VAT/GST), and that’s exactly what’s happening. The easiest solution would be turning your Airbnb listings to “tax ineligible”, but that’s something that must be changed on Airbnb, and you could update the information by re-mapping your listings via Channel Manager.

    Sending the rates to Airbnb inclusive of taxes without telling Airbnb what’s your VAT/GST rate would simply be wrong, because as we said, Airbnb requires each tax component to be defined via the apposite API. In this case you would not have any VAT/GST amount, and their service fees would be calculated on an invalid amount. Listing rates must be tax exclusive, and VAT/GST will be configured through the apposite API endpoint by your Channel Manager. It would be wrong also to prevent this from happening, because right now your listings are tax eligible according to Airbnb, and so they expect to receive a tax rate for VAT/GST that you have configured in your PMS.

    Please get in touch with our team for further details and support.

    Thank you,
    The VikWP Team

    Thread Starter Oliver Jusinger

    (@jusol)

    1 day, 1 hour ago

    Dear VikWP Team,

    thank you for your detailed report, sorry i chose the wrong forum. I had longer discussions with the e4j support (sorry to wrongly assume AI, answers were obviously human today) and the Airbnb support.

    Ok, I will continue to discuss it with your support (#gza6fQafWsmrpHzh). I really appreciate your knowledge however I am not convinced for multiple reasons. I will try to summarize them again in the support ticket.


    Thread Starter Oliver Jusinger

    (@jusol)

    23 hours, 38 minutes ago

    I definitely don’t want to blame anyone, but just as a final information for users having the same problem:

    Airbnb just confirmed my version – custom tax (vat) is explicitly an optional choice, this is also valid for channelmanagers. “tax eligible” only relates to the taxpayers information which is mandatory by law in europe. It must not be used by the channelmanager to decide if custom tax (VAT) is created. So I guess this will be fixed in a next e4j release.

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