What a day close has to show
Whether a POS system is mandatory is a different question from how you close. Close the day at a fixed moment, not when it is quiet. The close shows what that service sold, split into cash, card and other methods, and what corrections sit on top. Then count the drawer. The gap between the cash figure in the POS and the cash in the drawer is a variance, not a rounding you wave away. Write it down, even when it is small. A run of small gaps is exactly what an inspection notices later.
Card sits beside cash, not in a separate folder from the terminal. The POS and the payment provider have to be reconcilable to the same amount. An integration such as Viva.com pulls that card flow closer to the till. Even without it, file the terminal report with the day close. Online payments and kiosk payments belong in the same comparison, or you will hunt a gap that was never in the drawer.
Corrections deserve their own line. A dish that comes back, a bill you split and then adjust, a price someone rang wrong: the original line and the correction both stay visible. Deleting a sale "to tidy the turnover" is what makes the turnover impossible to check. The desktop POS is useful to the tax administration to the extent that this history survives until the close, and afterwards in the records you keep.
What the seven-year duty actually covers
The Dutch tax administration’s ordinary period is seven years. Basic records, including the general ledger and the purchase and sales administration, stay that long in any case. Data about immovable property are kept for ten. For a hospitality till the working rule means day closes, turnover by payment method, VAT totals and the underlying sales of those years. The retention periods start when a record is no longer current. A shift close is archive after that, not a live document.
If you use an automated POS, the line detail generally matters. It shows whether the money matches what left the building. A system that overwrites last year because the disk filled up leaves a hole in an inspection, even though buying the till was never mandatory. Keep an export you can open without the supplier. Test it once. A file that only the old software can still read is not an archive.
Shorter periods can sometimes be agreed in writing for data that are not basic records. Do not assume the sales ledger or the daily closes qualify on their own. And do not keep only the tidy totals: the corrections and the cash variances belong with them, because they explain why the drawer and the POS did not always match. Walking through the setup of a venue can happen in a conversation about the fit. The return itself stays work for you and your accountant.
How to set VAT on food, soft drinks and alcohol
The POS only charges the rate you put on the product. In Dutch hospitality, food and non-alcoholic drinks normally take the reduced rate of 9 percent. Alcoholic drinks take the standard rate of 21 percent. Beer and beer mixes above 0.5 percent alcohol, and other drinks above 1.2 percent alcohol, belong on that standard rate. Low-alcohol beer at or below 0.5 percent stays on the reduced rate. The tax administration’s page on VAT for drinks is where you check a borderline product, not the memory of the busiest Saturday.
Mixed drinks are a familiar mistake on the menu. If you also sell the parts separately, and the mixed drink costs the sum of those prices, you may put the alcohol at 21 percent and the alcohol-free part at 9 percent. Otherwise 21 percent applies to the whole drink, unless the drink as a whole stays at or below 1.2 percent alcohol. A cocktail as one item on the standard rate is often the honest setup. An average rate across the menu is not.
Lodging, vouchers and other lines that are not a dish have their own rate question. Do not copy the food rate onto them. Check them with the tax administration before they go into the POS. A wrong rate on a product you sell all day adds up every service, and the retention duty keeps that mistake visible for seven years. An hour of setup is cheaper than a correction across old years.
