Use ISO codes instead of country names for VAT MOSS

[robjbrain]

When trying to explain a transaction as VAT MOSS using the API we are asked for “place_of_supply” which is the country the sale was in.

At the moment this expects a specific string of the country name.

Would it not be better to accept two or three letter ISO codes? Pretty much every piece of software represents nations using these codes so it’s frustrating to have to implement a separate conversion to the country names that Free Agent requires.

It would also avoid any issues with variations in country names, since ISO codes are a fixed standard.

[brng]

This never got replied to but is still a problem so it doesn’t feel like a zombie thread.

Any updates on this?

[ptgnet]

lol. Not a chance. I wrote this several years ago:

Czech Republic country name is different - now Czechia

So this problem has come up again. Now the country is Slovakia. It is no longer officially called Slovakia, as it is now Slovak Republic. I use VAT Moss extensively along with the API. So when I create and set a contact’s country to either Czechia or Slovak Republic, we’re ultimately getting API errors because the contact’s country is silently set to United Kingdom and so VAT Moss invoices break. This problem, along with all the others I’ve reported and have long-since been ignored, is real …

and it’s still not resolved. There’s no such place as Slovakia and Czech Republic.

“Cards” have been created, and while they’re quite pretty, there is no direct relationship between a problem being acknowledged and them actually fixing it.

[brng]

I had seen your ticket as well. Highlights why we don’t use names in APIs if we can help it…