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Ivy’s AU's Inclusive vs. Exclusive Tax Structure
Ivy’s AU's Inclusive vs. Exclusive Tax Structure
Cameron Jahn avatar
Written by Cameron Jahn
Updated over a week ago

We understand that in Australia, the majority of products and services purchased and sold are inclusive of GST. As such, Ivy’s inclusive/exclusive tax feature ensures that items bought and sold are done so with the necessary tax settings taken into account.

How does it work? It starts with your account settings and profile preferences. Access your account settings by clicking on the initials listed in the top right-hand corner of your account, and click on My Account. Next, click on the Sales Tax tab.

Here, you can set default tax settings for your account. These settings include:

  • Whether products and services are taxable

  • Whether products and services are inclusive of GST

  • What the default tax rate is for your products and services

  • Whether or not you want client-facing documents to display prices inclusive of GST

By default, all of these settings are turned on. This means that all products and services are default taxable, and default inclusive of GST at the standard and reduced rates, respectively. 

This also means that by default your client-facing documents will show pricing inclusive of GST. This applies to proposals and invoices, as well as PDFs or spec sheets created from proposals and invoices.

*If you started using Ivy prior to December 8, 2019, your default account settings for client-facing documents will be exclusive. Here’s how you can easily change your account settings to be inclusive for client-facing documents.

How to set your costs for products and services to be inclusive of GST:

In order to understand how to indicate that products/services added to your Ivy account are inclusive of GST, it’s important to know how to add products and services to your account.

From the Ivy Clipper:

If your account settings indicate that all account products are by default inclusive of GST, any product that you clip using the Ivy clipper will assume cost added is inclusive of GST.

From the product library:

Upon adding a product to the product library, according to your account settings, the product cost will indicate that it is inclusive of GST, indicated by the checked “Inclusive” box. When an item’s inclusive tax cost is entered, you will see the exclusive unit cost listed below. Ivy calculates the exclusive unit cost of the item based on the GST rate you have selected upon entering the item to your library. By default, the rate from your account settings is selected.  

While adding a product to your library, you can choose to override your default account tax settings and indicate that the item does not include GST by unchecking the “Inclusive” box, and you may also change the tax rate associated with the item by selecting a different amount in the dropdown menu.

Upon adding an item inclusive of GST to your product library, you will notice that the cost listed is exclusive of GST. Simply hover over the t icon next to the cost, and you'll see a breakdown of the unit cost and GST, which equals the total cost of the item.

The same principle applies to services added to your products/services library. Any service added will show your inclusive cost broken down to the exclusive unit cost, and you have the ability to override default settings by indicating whether the item is inclusive/exclusive of GST, and at which rate.

Here's what it looks like in your services library once saved:

How does this appear to your client on your client-facing documents? 

If you’ve opted to display inclusive pricing on client-facing documents, your clients will see pricing per line item, inclusive of GST. This will be explicitly noted on the document, “Rate (incl. GST).” 

The total cost without GST will appear at the bottom of the document as noted, “Total before GST.” This is followed by the GST, and then the total amount of the proposal or invoice.

If you’ve opted to display exclusive pricing on client-facing documents, your clients will see a product or service’s exclusive cost on the line item. Ivy will then calculate and show GST as a total per document, rather than per line item. This will be explicitly noted on the document, “Rate (excl. GST).”

The total cost without GST will appear at the bottom of the document as noted, “Total before GST.” This is followed by the GST, and then the total amount of the proposal or invoice.

Why are items in my Product Library being listed with 0% GST?

Items added to your library as exclusive of GST will not show a GST amount on the item in the product library. GST will only be added on a document level, at which point you can select the GST rate to associate with the item.


Need more help? Contact us at support@ivy.co.

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