Importing, Exporting, and Copying Your VAT Setup

Authoring a complete VAT code table row by row is tedious: a realistic Hungarian workspace needs dozens of codes plus the dimension rows behind them. So the whole VAT setup travels as one unit. Export it to a single Excel workbook, author or edit it there and import it back, or copy a proven setup from another workspace.

The tables involved are described in VAT master data.

Where The Buttons Are, And Who Can Use Them

All three sit in the title row of Master data → VAT codes, above the tab bar, so they are there whichever tab you are on.

1. Export VAT Setup, for anyone who can open the page.
2. Import VAT Setup, accounting side only.
3. Copy from workspace, accounting side only.
4. The six tabs. The three buttons belong to the page, not to a tab, so they are there on every one of them.

Export is available to anyone who can open the page, which in practice means the accounting side: the page is not offered to client-side users at all. One caveat worth knowing, because it fails quietly: a member whose record access has been denied downloads a structurally valid but empty workbook, with no error.

Import and Copy are shown to everyone on the accounting side, but the server requires the "Edit master data" permission. If your role lacks it the buttons are still there, and you find out late:

• Import gets as far as the file picker and then refuses.
• Copy fails earlier and more confusingly, with a message about not being able to load workspaces. That is the permission, not a network problem.

Under the buttons, a Last import line shows when the setup was last bulk-changed and by whom. There is no history beyond the most recent one, and the line is shown to the accounting side only.

The Workbook

Export downloads one .xlsx with five sheets: Partner VAT Groups, Product-Service VAT Groups, VAT Rates, Calculation Methods and VAT Codes. Sheet names stay English, because that is how the importer finds them. The import preview spells them differently, with spaces and translated, so do not go hunting in the file for the wording the dialog shows you. The filename carries the workspace and the date.

It is a complete snapshot. Archived rows are included and marked, and VAT code rows reference the dimension sheets by code, never by internal identifiers. A freshly created workspace exports a small but valid workbook, which doubles as your empty template: there is no separate template download.

Conventions inside the file:

• Dates are YYYY-MM-DD, and on import 2026.01.31., 2026/01/31 and real Excel date cells are also accepted.
• Percentages are plain numbers (27, not 27%), and a decimal comma is fine.
• Yes/no columns accept yes and no.
• The second, translated header row only appears for a Hungarian or German workspace. An English-locale workspace exports one header row. On import either vocabulary works, as long as you do not mix languages inside one sheet.

The file carries the stored English names of seeded rows, not the translated labels you see on screen. A Hungarian workspace's export says Domestic, not Belföldi. If you type the on-screen Hungarian name over it, you have renamed the row, which detaches it from the system defaults. Leave those names alone unless you mean to rename them.

Importing

The flow is: upload, look at what it would do, then confirm.

1. Preview. The file is checked completely with nothing written. You see, per sheet, how many rows are new, updated, unchanged, and how many have errors. The error list is right there under the counts, in a scrolling box.
2. Confirm. Only then is anything applied, and all of it applies together. If any part fails, nothing is committed.

Any error blocks the whole import. Fix the named rows and upload again.

5. Per sheet: new, updated, unchanged, and an error count where there are errors. Four of these five sheets would go through.
6. Confirm import is disabled while anything is in error, and the dialog says plainly that nothing has been imported. The error names the sheet, the row and the column, and here it is the five-element overlap: an existing active code already covers that combination for an overlapping period.

Only .xlsx, up to 5 MB, up to 2,000 rows per sheet. There is no column-mapping step and no row-by-row review grid: headers are matched against a fixed multilingual list of known names. If you know the Partners or category imports, this one is deliberately simpler than those.

What the import changes, and what it leaves alone

• Rows are matched by their code. For VAT codes that is the accounting code or the AIFT code, depending on your workspace's uniqueness setting. Matched rows are updated, unmatched ones created.
• Nothing is ever deleted. A row that exists here but not in your file is left alone.
• Only the columns present in the file are written, so a narrow file changes narrowly.
• Sheets missing from the file are skipped, so a file with only VAT Rates is a valid single-table import. Unknown sheets and columns are ignored with a note rather than an error.
• One upload may add a dimension row and a VAT code that uses it: sheets are processed in dependency order.

Three things that catch people out:

• Archived = no, or an empty Archived cell, un-archives the row. Clearing that cell is not "leave it as it is".
• Changing a code changes the identity. Edit a code, an accounting code or an AIFT code and the row no longer matches anything, so it is created as a new row rather than updated.
• Overlapping validity ranges are refused. If a file row's five elements plus its validity period overlap an existing active row, or two rows in the file overlap each other, the import stops. This is the most common real blocker and it has nothing to do with typos.

Re-importing an export is not always a no-op

It usually is, but two live configurations break it, and both are legitimate states the editor allows:

• A dimension row with no code. The editor permits it; the export writes an empty Code cell; the import rejects it as a required field.
• A VAT code with no accounting code, which is allowed in AIFT-code mode. The importer requires an accounting code on every VAT code row in both modes.

So treat a round trip as a useful check rather than a guaranteed one. If it fails on these, the file is fine and the editor and importer simply disagree.

Copying From Another Workspace

Copy from workspace… lists the workspaces in your accounting organisation where you are on the accounting side. Pick a source, click Preview changes, then Confirm copy. Note the extra step: it is not two clicks.

Appearing in the list does not guarantee the copy will work, because the copy itself needs "Edit master data" in both workspaces.

A copy overwrites more than an import does. It sends the source's complete current setup, so every field is present and the source wins on all of them, including clearing a description the target had, and overwriting the target's validity dates and archived flags. "Update or create, never delete" is true about rows, not about fields.

Two mismatches to check before copying:

• Uniqueness mode. Keying follows the target workspace. Copying rows with no AIFT code into an AIFT-mode target fails on every row.
• Country. Nothing stops you copying a Hungarian rate table into a German workspace.

What neither import nor copy carries

• The default VAT code per direction. After a copy you must set it again by hand: see VAT master data.
• The two VAT settings, the code-uniqueness mode and the export handling.
• The Examples tab, and the Business Central VAT mapping.

There is also a second route most new clients actually take: the guided new-client walk copies a chosen workspace's setup, VAT included, as one of its steps. See Workspaces.

Tips

• To review or discuss a client's VAT setup, export it and share the file. It reads naturally in Excel.
• To bulk-edit one table, export, edit that one sheet, delete the other four, and import.
• After any bulk change, re-check the default VAT codes and look for duplicate codes on the product/service tab, which the app warns about there.