Driving Me Crazy

[the_constructor]

I paid my council tax today online and on the very last screen you are able to save the file which is an online VAT receipt, showing all your payment details in.

Great I thinks, I'll be able to print my receipt out later.

Logged off after saving only to realise that the file has an extension of .cfm

Trawling through the net I find that it is a ColdFusion file and the prog is very expensive.

Anyone know of a prog that will let you view and print .cfm files that is relatively cheap or free.

An email of complaint has been sent to Council but I bet they do now't as per usual

[Tim S]

I bet it still contains (X)HTML. Coldfusion is a server side system - if the server dumped code on you, it would be a possible breach of security on their part and generally a bad show all round. You wouldn't be able to run it anyway even with a copy of Coldfusion as it will undoubtedly need a know infrastructure around it (database server and so on).

Try renaming it to .html and then open it. Fiver says it will be fine :)

Cheers

Tim

[Martin]

What on earth is the point of getting a receipt? On-line payment means you have proof enough from your own bank statement. And since when is there VAT on council tax?

You only ever need a receipt for someone else's benefit - so if the need ever arises, just send them your CFfile.... they'll soon decode it if they're really interested....

Good job too - I don't want them wasting my money on receipts for fully traceable transactions.

HTH

[Dave Fawthrop]

|!I paid my council tax today online and on the very last screen you are able |!to save the file which is an online VAT receipt, showing all your payment |!details in. |! |!Great I thinks, I'll be able to print my receipt out later.

When paying on line, I *always* print the important things while they are on screen (usually too many). The print then contains the identification of the web page printed.

[Dave Fawthrop]

|!> Great I thinks, I'll be able to print my receipt out later. |!>

|!> Logged off after saving only to realise that the file has an extension of |!> .cfm |!>

|!> Trawling through the net I find that it is a ColdFusion file and the prog |!> is very expensive. |!>

|!> Anyone know of a prog that will let you view and print .cfm files that is |!> relatively cheap or free.

|! |!What on earth is the point of getting a receipt? On-line payment means you |!have proof enough from your own bank statement. And since when is there VAT |!on council tax?

And your bank does not make mistakes on your bank statement? Mine does.

[Martin]

Never, in more years than I care to admit - though I accept my experience may be unusual. But even if they (or their computer) gets it wrong, the money has either gone from the OPs account, or it hasn't. If it hasn't, I suggest the receipt would be of little value - except in contesting a "late payment" penalty. I also assume that the OP's bank statement is viewable on line, showing the payment, and the OP could always print that off before the bank's computer changes its mind...

Apologies that my previous post was unnecessarily aggressive - but I do believe, in this day and age, that we can dispense with a lot of traditional paperwork.

[Stuart Noble]

I just hit the print screen key and keep it as an image.

I particularly don't trust government sites to function properly. The congestion charge procedure was a bit clunky last time I used it.

[Jethro]

A few years back, when I ran my own business, I paid in a bunch of cheques at Hounslow branch. Imagine my surprise when the statement said "portsmouth". I went in to Hounslow, and complained, and the CS manager couldn't see the problem. Even when I pointed out that if for any reason I needed to proved I was in hounslow that day, not portsmouth, then I'd be stuffed.

In the end, I had to get the manager, and use my patented method to Get Banks To Do Their Job*

*Start by getting them to acknowledge somthing is not right. Then start asking what else they might have got wrong. This is particularly effective in the new "open plan" banks, as you have the pleasure of watching a manager assuring you that they don't make mistakes, and that they're sure your balance is right. On occassion I have found it useful to bring a desktop calculator with me - with the loud declaration that theirs are clearly faulty.

[the_constructor]

Here's what it says on the receipt Martin

OFFICIAL INTERNET PAYMENT VAT RECEIPT

[the_constructor]

Some of us do like to keep a little bit of tradition

[Martin]

Fair point.

There are certainly traditions in other areas of life which I'm sorry to see are now largely ignored. Starting with tradesman turning up when they say they will.

OTOH, I think I've also read somewhere that paper consumption in the average office has grown, now that people print off all their emails etc.

[Martin]

OK. I deduce you can pay for other stuff on the same site, some of which may be VATable - hence the supplier (council) is including its VAT Reg No. etc on _all_ receipts, and calling them _all_ VAT receipts. Or maybe they know something of Gordon's plans which we don't - and are preparing themselves.... :-((

[auctions]

Everything supplied by an organisation which is VAT registered should be supplied with a VAT receipt. If the item/service is zero rated for VAT, the VAT receipt will show that no VAT has been charged, but it is still a VAT receipt.

It is important that online payment systems give proper receipts. If I pay council tax on a house which I've bought to let, the council tax is a business expense, and I need to keep proper records. It's a real pain when companies or councils assume that because most of their customers don't need real receipts, they don't have to bother.

A

[Martin]

< snip >

I understand your concern, but it's important to distinguish between invoices and receipts. Council Tax (like most things) is not paid until you've rec'd the bill (aka invoice). Your own records (bank statements-cum-cash book) are sufficient for you to know payment has been made. HMRC (for both income tax and VAT purposes) do not expect to see, and don't ask for, receipts. For VAT purposes, I wouldn't dream of paying anyone until I had a VAT invoice in my hand, Otherwise, the supplier's failure to supply a "VAT receipt" would debar me from recovering input VAT - even if I was cash accounting for VAT.

Obviously, there are times when supply and payment coincide - eg fuel at the petrol station. If you look at the "VAT receipt" they give you (when requested!) you'll see it is effectively an itemised VAT invoice, a receipt and a Statement of Account all in one.

HTH

[the_constructor]

You are right of course Martin, the paper industry has never had it so good. It was said when computer were first introduced to the commercial sector that eventually their would be a paperless office. How wrong they were.

Personally with regards to tradesmen, the majority of them are just a bunch of greedy crooks. Only interested in screwing what they can out of you and doing a crap job at the same time.

[maxim naumov]

either save the page as HTML, or print to a _file_: create a dummy postscript printer and click "print to file" checkbox. then you will be prompted for a filename. the postscript file will contain the exact printable copy. you can convert this format to PDF, which is best for printing and archiving. search for "ps2pdf" utility online.

saving as images is a pain with long pages. this also leaves you with low resolution and raster files are larger than text ones. you also get decoration around the actual text you need. saving HTML won't work every time (always check what you have just saved) and may look different when printed later.

PS/PDF is as close to the hard copy as you can get. it is essentially a hard copy without paper. 8)

/max

[Lurch]

On Thu, 10 May 2007 09:25:36 +0100, maxim naumov mused:

Why not just print to PDF rather than going through all the rigmarol of adding dummy printers, converting files etc..?

[Mike Clarke]

And for the benefit of any Windows users who don't already have this facility installed I can recommend the free PDF "printer driver" pdfcreator .

[maxim naumov]

perhaps because not all installations have PDF writer installed?

another reason is that PDF exporting tools differ. if all you do is print, it doesn't matter much (although size can differ). but if you want to _search_ for text, some PDF export tools will create such PDFs that you won't be able to search in them. the method above doesn't mangle text, convert it to raster image or split it into separate characters as some of the tools do.

/max

[Stuart Noble]

This one suggested earlier has the search cpability

end up with several pdfs, which would be better as one.