Field notes & briefings
Insights for cross-border finance teams.
Cross-border payments and EU VAT change fast. These notes turn the moving rules into plain answers your team can act on. Each one is written by the same people who run gateway setups and OSS filings for a living. No theory. Just what we do, why it works, and where it goes wrong.
Three lenses on every brief
We file every insight under one of three lenses. Together they cover the whole cross-border stack — from the checkout to the audit trail.
- Payments
Get paid in every market
Gateway choice, smart routing and failover decide how much of your revenue clears. We write up what actually moves authorisation rates across EU acquirers.
- Tax
VAT that survives an audit
OSS and IOSS, distance-selling thresholds and quarterly returns, explained plainly. One filing calendar. No quarter-end panic. No guesswork.
- Operations
Close the seam between them
Revenue leaks where the gateway meets the VAT return. Our notes show how to reconcile payouts, fees and tax line by line across currencies.
The briefing library
Answers to the questions we hear most
Every topic below comes from a real client question. We are building these into full guides. Want one sooner? Tell us which and we will prioritise it.
- Payment infrastructure
Choosing the right EU payment gateway
Local methods, acquirer reach and pricing differ by market. We map how to pick a gateway stack that fits where you sell, not where it is headquartered.
- VAT schemes
OSS vs IOSS: which scheme applies
One serves intra-EU distance sales. The other clears low-value imports. We show which fits your goods, your flow and your thresholds.
- Revenue recovery
Cutting payment failure and chargebacks
Failed payments are lost revenue, not noise. We break down retry logic, network tokens and the SCA exemptions that lift more checkouts through.
- Compliance
PSD2 and SCA, tuned for conversion
Strong customer authentication protects you. Done wrong, it sheds buyers. We cover where exemptions apply and how to keep checkout smooth.
- Registration
When EU VAT registration is triggered
The €10,000 distance-sales threshold changes everything. We walk through what trips the obligation and the order to register in.
- Reporting
Reconciling VAT and payment data
Payouts, processor fees and tax must agree across ledgers. We share the method we use to keep both sides audit-ready every month.
Skip the reading
Have a live cross-border problem?
A briefing is a fine start. A working session is faster. Walk us through your markets, your gateway and your VAT footprint. We will tell you what to fix first.