Select “This product is a service” by default in product CPT

Hi Hans,
The option “this product is a service” is not used to distinguish digital from physical products. That flag is used only when generating VIES reports, which have a column called “service”. The VIES report shows “true” or “false” in that column, depending if the product has the “product is a service” option enabled.

At the moment, there aren’t filters to enable that option by default. If you wish to set it in bulk, you could do so with an SQL query. Here’s an example:

UPDATE wp_postmeta
SET meta_value = 'yes'
WHERE meta_key = '_vies_product_is_service'

Please make sure that you take a backup of your database before running the query, as the changes it makes are permanent. It’s also recommended to test it on a staging copy of the site, to make sure that the result is what you are looking for.

Hi Diego,

Thanks for the bulk-update tip, that was also one that I needed.

I understand that this check is not for distinguishing physical products from digital, because WooCommerce already has checks for that (virtual product and downloadable), but I thought it could be used to distinguish from digital Services from non-digital services. If it isn’t meant for that, I don’t yet understand the reason for this check to begin with. In that case: Is this check to mark a product as a digital service or is it meant to mark products when they are virtual but NOT a digital service (so like hiring a cleaning lady or booking a session for a massage or something)?

I do (and did) understand that the working of this check is that it results in a distinction in the VIES report only, so I should be able to extract the data I need there.

Perhaps I’m missing something and checking this option doesn’t mean that this product isn’t a digital product/service, but if it is meant to mark non-digital services, the default should in many cases be to mark the product as NOT being a digital service instead of being a digital service.

And to be general: depending on the business of a company one probably would want to set a default value somewhere for new products. But in that case the label might be somewhat confusing, since both a non digital service and other virtual products may be (kind of) services (digital or otherwise).

Bulk changing is a nice help, thank you for that, but depending on its intention it should be able to check this option by default for new products too. I want to prevent that a user adding a product (or a plugin auto-adding a product) marks it implicitly as a digital product (by forgetting, or not understanding, or being just another plugin).

If I’m missing something, can you please inform me? Perhaps there is something that I don’t yet understand, and I’m trying to use the mark for something it can’t be used for.

Regards,

Hans

As I mentioned, the flag is used exclusively for the VIES report, which includes a column to distinguish if a product is a service. The VIES report is unrelated to the VAT MOSS regulations, and it’s also not directly related to products being digital o not.
Subsequently, the “is service” flag is independent from the product being physical or digital. Depending on what someone sells, and specific regulations, a product (e.g. a training class, a technical assistance ticket, a courier service) might be considered a service or not.

The “is service” option is disabled by default for new products, as it’s implied that the person who creates the product is responsible for setting it correctly. The EU VAT Assistant doesn’t make assumptions, nor it tries to “figure out” if that flag should be set or not. The plugin is meant to be used for reporting, and acts on the data entered by the merchant, under merchant’s responsibility.
Similarly, bulk importing products with a tool can work, but it’s up to the person importing the products to set the flag correctly.

The best way to avoid issues is to train the staff who configures the products about the purpose of the available settings.

Thank you for clearing that up, Diego. I appreciate your plugin and help very much and do now understand that this field is not meant for what I hoped it would be. Off course I don’t expect any plugin to practice mind reading, so that was surely never the request.

Given the choice I do agree that trained staff makes mistakes less likely, but when products are added automatically on the background there is no staff directly involved and someone must check and correct. I suspect you have experienced people making mistakes too. Supporting a plugin such as yours probably means handling a lot of requests and you off course have to make pragmatic choices in that.

So in general I do not agree with you assumption that default settings are less important then trained staff. Well thought out logic is always the starting point and will always try to handle as much repetitive tasks and clever entry-points as possible. Developers tend to use default settings and systems logic to make the best input and practices always the easiest root for their users. Having well thought-out defaults for fields just makes mistakes less likely. We’re lucky to have you to make this great premium product, so we don’t have to.

But like I said, in this case the field is not what I hoped, so I will use different paths for what I was looking for and you can close this thread.

Meanwhile I have been busy translating this plugin in the Dutch language, so I hope the editors on www.remarpro.com will agree soon and it will be in Dutch too.

Thanks again,

Hans

Hi Hans,
From a technical perspective, the default for the “is service” field is actually none. The field is fetched using a standard WordPress function and, when the option is not set, the returned value is “null”. That value is neither “yes” (product is a service) or “no” (product is not a service). The option is actually set to “yes” or “no”, when you save the product, so you can get the chance to change the setting.

From our perspective, it’s better not to assume anything, than making an incorrect assumption. Also, the “product is service” was an option we added for our own internal use, therefore its behaviour is quite basic. In fact, the EU VAT Assistant itself was designed for internal use, around our own business needs. We released it to the public at a later stage, after four months of development (at our own cost), so that small merchants would not have to pay a percentage of their sales to comply with regulations that, in our opinion, are not so well thought.

If you need any additional feature in the plugin, please feel free to get in touch. We welcome suggestions, and it’s always possible to sponsor the development of new features.

Going back to your original purpose, an easy way to distinguish digital products from physical ones is to use categories. That’s also what we do. The EU VAT Assistant allows you to specify which categories fall outside the scope of VAT MOSS reports, so if you choose that route, you will already be able to generate reports that separate VAT MOSS from non-VAT MOSS sales.

Hi Diego,

Thanks for further explaining and sharing your strategy towards separating digital products from physical ones. I fear in my case it is a bit much ado about little, since after consulting the tax authority I found only our e-books (and not the online courses) are considered digital products. So we now have only 2 digital products at the moment and only one physical product, the rest are event-tickets and human services. But we have to do our duty and administer everything nevertheless. We aim to grow and expand so perhaps this is preparation for when we need it.

B.T.W. I looked at the alternative plugins, also the one of David too and found the option to exclude selected Tax-classes nice too. Your reporting is however more expanded and integrated in the WC reporting and I like that and your free version is much more premium and seems to work fine with WC subscriptions and B2B out of the box. So I’m very pleased with your plugin. Thank you. Well done!

Kind regards,

Hans