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CZ/SK VIES — direct check and proof of consultation

Checks EU VAT numbers directly against the European Commission's VIES service, without Odoo IAP, and keeps every check with its consultation number as evidence.

What it is for

An intra-Community supply of goods is exempt from VAT only if the customer is registered for VAT in another member state and has given you that VAT number. Checking the number in VIES, the European Commission's VAT Information Exchange System, is how you show you did.

Odoo checks VAT numbers through its own IAP service and keeps only a yes/no flag. This module:

• calls the European Commission's VIES service directly, with no Odoo account or IAP credits;
• makes a qualified check — one that names your company as the requester — so VIES returns a consultation number (číslo overenia / číslo ověření), the identifier of that particular consultation;
• keeps every check — date, result, consultation number, the name and address VIES holds, who checked and for which company — as a read-only log on the contact;
• re-checks contacts daily.

Legal background

The exemption conditions that make the customer's VAT number matter:

• Slovakia — § 43 ods. 1 zákona o DPH: the supply is exempt if the acquirer is a taxable person (or a non-taxable legal person) identified for VAT in another member state and has given the supplier that identification number.
• Czech Republic — § 64 odst. 1 zákona o DPH: the supply to a person registered for VAT in another member state is exempt if that person gave the plátce its VAT identification number, the goods are dispatched to another member state, and the plátce reports the supply in the souhrnné hlášení.

Neither act prescribes VIES or the consultation number as the form of proof; it is the evidence tax authorities customarily ask for when a customer's number later turns out to have been invalid.

Setting it up

1. Your company must have its own Tax ID (IČ DPH / DIČ) filled in. VIES issues a consultation number only for a qualified check, which needs the requester's VAT number.
2. Accounting → Configuration → Settings, block Taxes, setting Verify VAT Numbers: tick Use direct EU VIES (no IAP). This is per company.

With the box ticked, Odoo's own VIES check (run when a VAT number is entered, if Verify VAT Numbers is on) goes to the European Commission instead of IAP, and the daily refresh runs for the company. The Check now button below works whether or not the box is ticked.

Checking a contact

On the contact form, below the Tax ID, the VIES row shows:

• Check now — saves the contact and checks its VAT number in VIES at once, as the company you are working in. A notification reports the result: Valid in VIES with the consultation number, Not valid in VIES, or VIES did not answer.
• a green tick or a red cross — the current verdict; click it to open the VIES tab. A dash means the company has not checked this contact yet.

The VIES tab (shown when the contact has a VAT number):

These fields show the current company's latest answered check. Below them is the full list of checks, by every company you have access to, with the date, result, consultation number and user. Invalid answers are shown in red, faults greyed out.

Nobody can edit the log. Only administrators can delete entries.

Daily refresh

The scheduled action VIES: Refresh direct checks (CZ/SK) runs once a day. For each company with Use direct EU VIES ticked it checks top-level contacts whose VAT number starts with an EU prefix (including EL for Greece and XI for Northern Ireland) other than the company's own country, which are shared or belong to that company, and which that company has not checked in the last 7 days — at most 200 per company per run, with a short pause between requests because VIES limits the request rate. Each result is logged and updates the contact's VIES verdict.

When VIES does not answer

VIES often answers that a national system is unavailable or busy. Such an answer (MS_UNAVAILABLE, MS_MAX_CONCURRENT_REQ, GLOBAL_MAX_CONCURRENT_REQ, SERVICE_UNAVAILABLE, TIMEOUT, BUSY) or no answer at all is logged as No answer. It never marks the number invalid and never replaces the last real proof; the daily refresh tries again after 7 days. Any other negative answer counts as invalid.

Limitations

• A contact not yet saved is checked but not logged. The automatic check Odoo runs when you type a VAT number is logged with its consultation number like any other — but on a new contact there is nothing to attach it to until it is saved. Press Check now after saving when you need the proof at once.
• No consultation number without your own VAT number. Without the company's Tax ID, VIES answers valid or invalid, but returns no consultation number.
• The daily refresh is not limited to customers. Every company with direct checks enabled checks every shared or own top-level contact with a foreign EU VAT number, whether or not it trades with it. Domestic VAT numbers and contacts of other companies are left out.
• The verdict is shared, the proof is not. The tick or cross is one value per contact, whichever company checked last; the consultation number and registered data are per company.
• A check proves what VIES answered at that moment. It does not cover the other exemption conditions (transport, souhrnné hlášení / súhrnný výkaz).