On a marketplace, who invoices whom? The answer shapes your obligations

A seller weighing up a marketplace almost always asks their accountant the same question: who issues the invoice to the end customer. The answer determines half the obligations.

On Oralzon the sale takes place between the seller and the customer. The seller issues their own invoice to the buyer, as they would with any other client.

The platform does not buy and resell: it brings the parties together, handles the payment and retains a commission. That commission is a service the platform invoices to the seller, and it is a separate document.

It follows that the seller has two documents to manage per cycle: their own sales invoice to the customer, and the service invoice received from the platform, which is a deductible cost.

Where sellers are least prepared is VAT on foreign orders, because the treatment changes according to who the buyer is and where they are.

If the customer is in the same country as the seller, domestic VAT applies as in any internal sale.

If they are in another EU country and are a business with a verified VAT number, the supply is intra-Community and the invoice is issued without charging tax, with the wording the regulations require.

If they are in another EU country but are not verified, they are treated as a final consumer, and the distance-selling rules come into play.

These three cases can only be distinguished by knowing the buyer's country and the status of their verification, and that is data a seller would not have on their own.

The platform calculates the treatment for every order line and makes it available in the tax summary. The seller has nothing to reconstruct: taxable amount, rate applied and treatment are already determined.

It does not replace the accountant and does not claim to. It supplies the data the accountant works from, which is the part that without a platform would have to be rebuilt order by order.

One last point concerns the moment of payment, which is distinct from the invoice date. Payment is taken at the order and transferred to the seller on the applicable cycle: they are two separate things, and worth clarifying with your adviser.

In summary: the seller invoices the customer and the platform invoices its commission to the seller, VAT treatment depends on the buyer's country and verification, the platform calculates and supplies the summary line by line, and payment and invoice remain distinct moments.