Does MERGEPORT transmit tax information?

No, MERGEPORT does not transmit any tax information for incoming orders. Ordering platforms such as Lieferando, Wolt, Uber Eats, or Foodora do not provide tax rates or tax breakdowns for individual items or orders through their APIs.

The responsibility for correct tax calculation and fiscalization lies entirely with your POS system.

Why is that?

Connected ordering platforms do not send a breakdown of tax amounts or percentages per product. Since this data is missing at the source, MERGEPORT cannot receive or forward it. MERGEPORT acts purely as an integration and translation layer between ordering platforms and POS systems – not as a billing or fiscalization service.

What does this mean for POS systems?

The POS system is responsible for applying the correct tax rate to each item. To do this, incoming items from the platforms must be mapped to the existing articles configured in your POS. This mapping allows the POS to automatically determine and apply the correct tax rate (e.g. standard or reduced VAT) for each transaction.

Best practices for handling taxes in the POS

A) Automatic matching by name or fallback article

The POS can attempt to match incoming platform items to existing menu items based on name or ID. If no match is found, the system can book the item to a predefined fallback article with a default tax rate. This prevents order blockages during service if new items on the platform have not yet been created in the POS.

B) Manual matching

For unknown items, the POS can provide an option in its management interface for the user to manually link the new item to an existing article or create a new one.

C) Automatic creation with highest tax rate (Recommended)

If an unknown item is received, the POS can automatically create it in its product list using the name and price sent by the platform. As a safety measure, the system should default to the highest applicable tax rate. At the end of the day, a summary of newly created items should be shown to the operator so they can verify and correct the tax settings.

Technical Background

• Each order item in the MERGEPORT payload contains the fields internalId, orderItemId, and posItemId.
• The posItemId corresponds to the external item ID (such as the PLU) configured on the platform, which is used by the POS for mapping.
• Some platforms support automatic menu synchronization and can load items directly from MERGEPORT. Others (like Lieferando) do not support synchronization, meaning menu items and PLUs must be maintained manually on the platform itself.