Financial Tools
The Benefits Of Offering A Functional VAT Calculator To Your Readership
If you have a blog or website that deals in currency matters, you’ll know how important it is to keep it up to date and accessible for your visitors. The more you can do for them, the more likely they are to stay with you and keep using your site.
Currency calculators are quite popular for this purpose, but what about other types of calculator? What about a VAT calculator, for example?
If your site deals with any kind of subject related to business or working for yourself, then a VAT calculator would certainly be welcomed by your visitors. And luckily you don’t have to pay to have one installed either. Let me walk you through this VAT calculator from the website VATCalculator.com. You can find it at http://www.vatcalculator.com/vat_calculator/ if you want to take a look for yourself.
Let’s see what it does.
How does this VAT calculator work?
The first thing to point out is that it has several different functions. And you’re not stuck with just one rate of value added tax, either.
As many of you will know, the rate of VAT in the UK has changed quite recently. The standard rate of 17.5% was reduced to 15% on the 1st December 2008. While this reduction is not permanent, it will be in place until New Year’s Day 2010. You will see that the calculator takes this into account by making the 15% rate the defaulted mode when you first look at it.
You will also see that it doesn’t matter whether you have a gross or net amount to work with either. Let’s walk through how you would use it, depending on which figure you are starting with.
Say for example you have a total amount of £100, and you want to know how much VAT is included within that amount. This could happen if you have a total written down in your accounts and you need to split it into the VAT part and the net part, for example.
What you do for starters is to put £100 into the input box at the top of the VAT calculator.
Don’t forget you need to make sure that the 15% VAT is relevant for your purposes. If you need the reduced rate, or the sum was worked out before 1st December 2008, you’ll need to change it using the drop down box.
Okay, so from there you need to know the amount of VAT included in your £100. The process for doing this is simple. There is a little box underneath the input box which asks you if the amount is inclusive of VAT. In this case it is, so you simply have to click your mouse in that box to make a tick appear.
You’ll see that you don’t even need to hit the calculate button in this case, as the split figures appear underneath for you automatically.
So that was easy, wasn’t it? Just imagine how easy your visitors will find it too! And you’ll be glad to know it’s just as easy if you need to add VAT onto a net amount – say for example if you are selling things to other people and you are VAT registered.
In this case the process is really not much different from the above. You’ll have your net amount ready and waiting, and as before you just need to type it into the input box.
The only difference is that it’s not inclusive of VAT, so you don’t tick the box this time. As such, you’ll need to hit the calculate button this time around, and that will bring up the figures you need in the boxes below. The example for a £100 starting figure is given in the screenshot below, so you can see how it works.
As you can see, this is easy to do and if you have a number of calculations to work out there are only really two things you need to remember. Firstly you will have to make sure the VAT rate is correct for each one. You might find it easier to do all the ones with the same rate first. Secondly, make sure that little box is ticked or not as appropriate.
Is it easy to install on my own site?
It’s as easy to install as it is to use! Here is the code you will need to do so, which you will find on the same page as the VAT calculator itself:
To actually put the calculator on your website, you just need to copy and paste that text exactly as it appears on the site. Once you have done that, you just need to put that code in the exact place on your website or blog where you want the VAT calculator to appear. This is up to you – many people find that dedicating a page to it is the best thing to do, since it will be easier for people to find.
Can I use it on more than one website or blog?
The calculator is free for you to use as and where you wish. So if you are a finance whiz and you want to use it on all your websites, feel free to do so. It is after all a useful tool and people who have business interests will be glad of the help.
Think of it like this – some people may have VAT sums to do which currently mean they have to leave your site and go elsewhere to find a VAT calculator. If you show them you can provide that service – especially for free – then you can enjoy longer visits to your site. That is what separates the good sites from the really good ones, so why not put your site or blog in the second group now?
Take another look at the calculator at http://www.vatcalculator.com/vat_calculator/, and then get to work installing it while you remember!
Installation And Review Of The Widgetbox Currency Converter
Everyone uses a currency converter from time to time. But no matter what your reason might be for using one, if you have a website that deals in currency or financial matters, you would do well to provide one for other people to use too.
Fortunately you can get one from a site called Widgetbox, and we’re going to take a look at the whole process from start to finish right here and now. And don’t worry if you haven’t done anything like this before, because Widgetbox makes the whole process nice and easy to follow.
The particular currency converter we are going to look at is on this page at Widgetbox – http://www.widgetbox.com/widget/currencycalculator. Once you are on this page you will be able to follow the whole process as we go through it below.
So first of all, what exactly is Widgetbox?
Widgetbox is a popular website which has thousands of different kinds of widgets available for you to use. You can put them on all kinds of sites and blogs, and there is a huge range to choose from.
For example, there are clocks, countdown clocks, games, quizzes and a lot more besides. And of course, currency converters are there too, including the one mentioned above.
There is no charge for using or downloading any of these widgets. All you need to do is browse through the various sections, search by tags or simply type what you are looking for into the search box which says ‘find widgets’. And if you want to build your own widget and share it with everyone else who uses the site, then of course you can do that too.
How does the currency converter work?
The process is very simple. All you do is type in the amount you have to change into another currency in the first box on the converter.
Once that bit is done, you need to select the two currencies you are going to work with. The first currency is the one your amount is in at the moment, and the second one is the one that you will be converting it into.
All you need to do then is to hit the convert button and your conversion figures will appear underneath, in green type. That is literally all there is to it – so if you have a website where people will want to know various exchange rates then you should definitely install this little widget to help them out.
How do I install it on my site?
Firstly you will need to sign up to the site – but don’t worry, it’s free and extremely easy to do. Just fill in the sign up box as indicated.
The next thing to do is to make doubly sure that the site you are going to install this currency converter widget onto supports Flash or Javascript. Once you’ve confirmed that this is the case, you can carry on with the installation.
There is minimal customisation possible with this particular widget, but you can choose either a graph background for your converter (the default mode), the graph filled choice, or simply leave it blank.
The next step is to select where your converter is going to appear. You’ve got a number of choices here – for example, if you have a blog on Blogger.com, you should select the Blogger logo and a small box will pop up.
All you have to do then is follow the on screen instructions that will guide you towards installing it on that particular website. For example, if you select the Blogger Post option, the box will pop up asking you for your log in details to access that site.
In another example, if you were to choose the Piczo option you would simply click on the Add Widget button in the pop up box. This would bring up the Piczo home page in another web page and you would log into your account before continuing with the installation.
Supposing I just want the basic embed code to install it on my own website or blog?
That’s not a problem either. All you need to do is to click on the big green ‘get widget’ button on the right hand side of the page.
Once you do this another box will appear in the middle of the screen. This will contain the code that you need to have for the currency converter to work properly.
All you need to do is copy and paste it into your website or blog, in the position that you want the currency converter to appear in. And that is literally all there is to it.
What if I want to install the currency converter on my own site, and put it on one of my social networking or blogging sites as well?
You would need to go through the process once for each different site you want to use it on. For example, if you wanted to put it on your own website and on your Blogger blog, you would get the appropriate code and go through the two relevant processes.
But if you had six different websites, all run by yourself, and you wanted to put the currency converter on all of them, then all you would have to do is use that same code on them all. You wouldn’t need anything different.
In conclusion
This currency converter can quickly and easily enhance any website or blog you may have. It should only take a few moments to install it, and because the size of the converter is quite small, it will fit easily onto any web page without taking over the appearance of it.
So if you have a few moments to spare, why not go straight to Widgetbox now and sign yourself in and have a go at installing it on your blog or website? You’ll be glad you did – and so will your visitors.
Helpful Resource: