Introduction - Set up Intrastat
All companies in the European Union (EU) must report their trade with other EU countries or regions. They must report the movement of goods to the statistics authorities in their country or region every month, and the report must be delivered to the tax authorities. This process is referred to as Intrastat Reporting. You can use the Intrastat Journal page to complete periodic Intrastat reports.
Intrastat became operational in 1993 when it replaced customs declarations as the source of trade statistics within the EU. The requirements of Intrastat are similar in all member states of the EU, although there are important exceptions.
Companies aren't required to report Intrastat to the authorities if their trade in goods falls below a certain annual threshold. The annual threshold can vary from country to country or region to region. For example, in 2017, the threshold for Malta for arrivals was €700, while for Belgium this was €1,500,000. You can find more information on these thresholds for each country or region on the internet.
Before you can use the Intrastat journal to report Intrastat information, you must set up several parameters.
Intrastat setup
You can use the Intrastat Setup page to enable Intrastat reporting and set defaults for it. On this page, you can specify whether you need to report Intrastat from shipments (dispatches), receipts (arrivals), or both, depending on thresholds that are set by your local regulations. You can also set default transaction types for regular and return documents that are used for reporting transactions.
In some countries or regions, such as Spain and the United Kingdom, the authorities require that Intrastat reports include, for example, the shipment method for purchases or some other values when sales are over a certain monetary threshold. On the Intrastat Setup page, you can select Intrastat Checklist Setup to set mandatory fields on the Intrastat Journal page.
Intrastat journal templates
You must set up the Intrastat journal templates and batches that you will use. Because Intrastat is reported monthly, you must create 12 Intrastat journal batches that are based on the same template.
The setup of the Intrastat journal batches is important because it determines the date filter for the entries to be reported. Intrastat journal batches are not similar in structure to other journal batches and can be set up as follows:
Select the Search for Page icon in the top-right corner of the page, enter intrastat journal templates, and then choose the related link.
Create a new line by entering information into the following fields:
Name: Unique identifier for the template.
Description: Short description for the template.
To create batches for the journal template, choose Related > Template and then choose the Batches action.
Create a new line by entering the following fields:
Name - Unique identifier for the batch.
Description - Short description of the batch.
Statistics Period - Enter the year and month period as a four-digit code: YYMM. For example, 1901 represents January 2019.
Currency Identifier - Enter the currency of the Intrastat report. If this field is left blank, local currency is used.
Reported - This field indicates whether the entries were reported to the tax authorities, and it's automatically selected when the Intrastat - Make Disk Tax Auth. batch job is run. If it's necessary, clear the check box. The system will rerun the report.
Because you must submit an Intrastat report every month, and you create a new journal batch for each report, you will eventually have many journal batches. The journal lines aren't deleted automatically. You might want to reorganize the journal batch names periodically by deleting the journal batches that you no longer need. The journal lines in these batches are also deleted.
Commodity codes
Customs and tax authorities have established numerical codes that classify items and services. All items that you buy or sell must have a commodity code.
To access the Commodity Codes page, select the lookup icon, enter commodity codes, and then choose the related link.
Transaction nature codes
Countries or regions have different codes for different types of Intrastat transactions, such as ordinary purchases and sales, exchange of returned goods, and exchange of non-returned goods. You should set up all codes that apply to your country or region. Then, you would use these codes on sales and purchase documents and when you process returns.
To access the Transaction Nature Codes page, select the lookup icon, enter transaction nature codes, and then choose the related link.
Transport methods
Intrastat transport methods have seven, one-digit codes.
Business Central doesn't require these codes; however, we recommend that the descriptions provide a similar meaning.
1 - Sea
2 - Rail
3 - Road
4 - Air
5 - Post
7 - Fixed installations
9 - Own propulsion (for example, transporting a car by driving it)
Optional setup
Optionally, you can also set up the following parameters:
Transaction specifications - Use these parameters to supplement the descriptions from the transaction types.
Areas - Use these parameters to supplement information about countries and regions.
Entry/exit points - Use these parameters to specify the locations where you ship or receive items to or from other countries or regions. Heathrow Airport is an example of an entry or exit point. You can enter the entry or exit points on sales and purchase documents on the Foreign Trade FastTab. This information will also be copied from the item entries when you create the Intrastat journal.
Country/region codes
If you perform business with EU countries or regions, you must fill in the EU Country/Region Code and the Intrastat Code fields on the Countries/Regions page. Both codes use the ISO standard code for describing the countries or regions, such as:
BE for Belgium
NL for Netherlands
DE for Germany
In addition, you must fill in the Intrastat code because the Suggest Lines batch job in the Intrastat journal retrieves only the entries that contain a country/region code with an Intrastat code. Therefore, make sure that Intrastat codes are set up for the country/region codes that are used in the batch job.