Cryptocurrency Sales. Accounting. Invoicing. Taxes. Solved!

The Beginning of a Journey

So you’ve decided to lead your business into the fray that is cryptocurrencies. Your business is well-suited to benefit from the new era in online payments and are ready to join the cutting edge businesses already accepting digital currency. You know of the benefits of ledger and blockchain tech such as lower transaction costs and quick settlement of a trust-less nature. What next? A little context, first, before pushing on.

Most of the well-known uses for cryptocurrencies thus far have been in investing or speculating in the format as a commodity or currency. Think gold or the current foreign exchange market. As the technology matures, consequently, more ways are being created to make use of them. And the trend is evolving as a greater number of adopters, mainly millennials, are using cryptocurrency to purchase goods and services. This growing base of cryptocurrency-wielding consumers appear to be willing to spend, and more open to using digital currency on a daily basis.

First Steps

So there is a market and you want to position yourself in the thick of it. That’s all fine and great, but your business has more practical concerns. What are the first steps to getting set up to accept cryptocurrencies? Is it really safe? Who can I talk to if I have issues? How do I report cryptocurrency income on my taxes? These are all valid fears a business might have.

At COINQVEST, we’ve anticipated these concerns and have pre-baked into our platform the financial reporting information you’ll need to clearly and accurately track your finances and compile your taxes. This is due in part to the Stellar Network blockchain.

”Stellar is a multi-currency and multi-asset ledger, so any currency or financial asset, really any form of value that is important to a community, can be issued and traded on Stellar,” says Lisa Nestor from the Stellar Development Foundation.

Your currency can be stated in any fiat you file your taxes in, no matter the cryptocurrency your customer paid with. Customer A paid in BTC? Fine. Client B paid with ETH? Splendid. Customer C paid in CHF? Great.

A Call for Consistency

Whatever the flavor your transactions are processed, they can be presented (and exchanged) in your chosen currency for consistency and convenience. If you run a cloud service based in the USA, your account can be displayed and calculated in USD. If you are a wholesale cheese distributor in France, you’d choose the euro. Your accountant shouldn’t have issues with cryptocurrencies or any other fiat because COINQVEST has taken the guesswork out of this.

We’ve also considered you may have issues with exchange volatility. With the blockchain tech of the Stellar Network, currencies are exchanged almost instantly. Nestor says, “payments are executed across a network that no one entity owns, and consistently in 5 seconds.”

The moment your customer hits the “confirm payment” button, their currency “turns into” your currency in seconds. This locks in the value, meaning you end up receiving the amount you expected to.

Record keeping and Invoicing

We’ve discussed income currency and consistency with taxes. CQ also has thought about your needs for keeping track of your valued customers. Input detailed tax (see below), shipping, and transaction information to each sale. This will put specific and relevant data at your fingertips, especially during tax season.

Furthermore, you can add customer details to transactions as well as invoices, automatically. This includes, but isn’t limited to currency, currency exchange rate, time stamps, etc. If a metric is valuable for you to record, we can help you do it.

The jurassic paradigm of online credit card payments has had its time. COINQVEST sees the signs of what is to come and we aim to bridge the gap between traditional and cryptocurrency payments. The online payment future is a no-brainer: it’s cheaper, faster, more efficient, and effective for businesses. And it’s here.

Trailblazers have long led their teams into the wilderness, not knowing if they would survive what lie ahead. Fortunately, this is one frontier COINQVEST can help you navigate. With COINQVEST, receiving cryptocurrency payments is a walk in the park.

If this article doesn’t answer your worries, talk to us. Let us know your concerns and we’ll get you sorted.

Adding Taxes to your Checkouts

Adding taxes to your checkouts is as simple as specifying the tax type or name and providing the percentage. In below checkout API call a 8.25% California sales tax is applied to a 10.00 USD t-shirt sale. This tax is now reflected in your COINQVEST accounting and invoices when the sale completes.

 {
   "paymentDetails":{
      "currency":"USD",
      "lineItems":[
         {
            "description":"T-Shirt",
            "netAmount":10.00
         }
      ],
      "taxItems":[
         {
            "name":"CA Sales Tax",
            "percent":0.0825
         }
      ]
   }
}

Analogous to the tax item above, you can add shipping and handling costs (taxable, or non-taxable) as well as custom discounts. Furthermore, each checkout can be associated with a customer object and a preferred settlement currency. Read our guides on hosted checkouts or white-label API checkouts to get started.