The business
Chummys Bakery bakes brownies by hand in the West Midlands and posts them fresh to customers across the UK. The Shopify store is organised around the products: brownies, cookies and cakes, occasions, a Christmas range and a coffee shop page. A corporate section sits in the main menu for companies that want to send boxes to clients or staff.
Gifting makes the paperwork interesting. Two buyers, two documents. A private customer buying for a friend needs a receipt. A company buying thirty boxes for a team needs an invoice its finance department will accept.
What a UK food seller has to get right
Food is one of the fiddlier corners of UK VAT. Most cold food is zero-rated, and cakes sit in that group. Hot takeaway food and confectionery are standard-rated at 20%. A product that falls between categories is a judgement call for the seller, and the invoice has to show the rate that was applied.
A zero-rated sale still needs a proper VAT invoice. The seller's VAT number, a unique invoice number, the date, a description of each product and the rate all belong on the page, even when the VAT charged is nothing. Corporate buyers also look for clear payment terms and the invoice number in a spot where they can quote it. Sellers must issue the invoice within 30 days of the sale and keep a copy for six years, which is easy for ten orders and hard for a thousand.
Many bakeries sell more than cake, and that is where mixed rates creep in. Gift packaging, cards or merchandise can carry standard-rate VAT on the same order as zero-rated boxes, so each line has to carry its own rate.
How Chummys uses PDF Invoice
Chummys installed the app in 2020. The store uses the Blue invoice template in English. A packing slip, a quote and a refund document sit alongside it, and bulk operations are switched on.
On the page, the Blue invoice layout shows the seller block with VAT number first, then the invoice number, date and amount, then the customer's billing details and payment method. A table lists each box with its SKU, quantity and price. A footer note can hold payment terms, which is where a corporate buyer looks for the due date.
The sample invoice beside this story uses invented names, addresses and numbers. It shows a corporate order of brownie boxes, cookie boxes and blondies, and because every line is a baked good, it carries a 0% VAT line next to the seller's VAT number.
Results
For a bakery that sells to both households and businesses, the app gives every customer a document in the same clean layout, with the VAT number and rate shown the same way each time.
Try it for your store
Selling food or gifts online? PDF Invoice lets you set the layout once and send consistent documents to everyone from one-off customers to corporate accounts. Install it from the Shopify App Store.