How to handle VAT on your Gigwell invoices.
Showing your VAT number or tax ID on invoices
Tax identifiers live on the organisation contact card, not the individual person's card. If yours isn't appearing on a generated document, it's usually either on the wrong card or the document hasn't been regenerated since you added it.
Add the ID and regenerate
Open the contact and make sure you're on the organisation card — the one with the building icon, not the person's card.
Click Edit.
Go to the Additional tab.
Fill in VAT for a standard VAT number, or Foreign ID for anything non-standard — a personal or national tax reference, or any other identifier that isn't a VAT number.
Save the contact.
Do the same for the other party on the booking if their ID also needs to print.
Go back to the booking and regenerate the document — Payments → Edit invoice → Create New Draft, or Buyer tab → Update Booking. Documents pick up contact data at the moment they're generated, so an existing invoice won't update on its own.
If that doesn't work
If one party's ID prints and the other's doesn't, the template carries the variable for only one party. That one needs our team — start a chat from the messenger and tell us which party's ID is missing and which template you're using, and we'll sort it out.
Good to know
Use Foreign ID rather than the VAT field for any identifier that isn't formatted as a VAT number. The VAT field is intended for standard VAT registration numbers.
A blank field prints as nothing rather than as an error, so a missing ID on a document usually means an empty card.
Which identifier a given buyer or tax authority expects to see on the invoice is a question for your accountant.
Showing management fee and VAT as separate lines
If your invoice shows a single combined figure where you need the fee and the tax itemized separately, this is down to which invoice template your account uses. Older bespoke templates often don't support separate lines for fee and tax. The current template, Invoice V2, itemizes fees and tax separately.
Check which template you're using
Go to Settings → Documents & Templates.
Open Payments (Invoices).
Look at which template is selected for the invoice type you issue.
If Invoice V2 is in the dropdown, select it and save.
Create a fresh invoice on a booking — Preview Draft, then Create Invoice — and check that the fee and tax now render as separate lines.
If that doesn't work
If Invoice V2 isn't in your template dropdown, it hasn't been set up on your account yet. Start a chat from the messenger and ask us to add it. Once it's there, you select it from the dropdown yourself and it applies to invoices you create from that point on.
If Invoice V2 is selected and the lines still come out combined, tell us the same way — that usually means the underlying values aren't entered where the template expects them.
Good to know
Switching templates affects invoices you create after the switch. Invoices already created keep the layout they were generated with. If you need an existing one redone, void it and issue a replacement.
Check where your amounts are entered before blaming the template. Withholdings belong under Terms → Offer → Withholdings Group, and expenses under Terms → Artist Expenses. A template can only itemize a value that exists on the booking.
"Management fee" is what a booking fee or agency commission is called in some regions — it's the same thing, invoiced separately from the artist fee.
For how VAT, moms, GST/HST and withholding are calculated, see the withholding tax articles.
Switching invoice templates between VAT and withholding
Templates are set up per currency and per purpose, so it's easy to end up on one built for a different tax treatment. Most templates are Google Docs that you can edit yourself, including adding, removing or repositioning the withholding and tax variables.
Check which kind of template you're on
Go to Settings → Documents & Templates.
Open the template in question.
See how it opens. If it opens as a Google Doc you can type into, you can edit it yourself — continue below. If it opens as a fixed layout you can't edit, it's an HTML template, and those aren't editable from your side.
Edit a Google Doc template
With the template open as a Google Doc, find the tax and withholding variables in the layout.
Remove the variables you don't want on this template — for example, take the withholding columns off a template that should only ever show VAT.
Add the variables you do want, positioning them where they should appear.
Save the template.
Go back to the booking and regenerate the document from Payments → Edit invoice → Create New Draft, or Buyer tab → Update Booking, so it renders with the updated layout.
If that doesn't work
HTML templates can't be edited from your side. That one needs our team — start a chat from the messenger and tell us the template name and which columns should appear, and we'll sort it out.
The same applies if a tax-ID variable is printing for one party but not the other.
Good to know
A template without withholding columns will render a zero WHT line no matter how the booking is configured. If withholding looks missing, check the template before you change anything on the booking.
Withholding never renders in the Terms view at all — only on invoices generated from Payments.
Withholding clauses in contracts have no template variable; that wording is typed in manually.
Negative values print in parentheses wherever the variable carries a leading minus. That's the template's formatting, not a data problem.
If you have any questions or need additional help, please reach out to support@gigwell.com or use the chat widget on your screen.