At a glance
Headline revenue with tax stripped out, the arithmetic sum of BigCommerce’s native total_ex_tax field across every order in the window. This is the figure your finance team recognises: the number that flows to the top line of the P&L before VAT or sales tax is remitted. Where Total Revenue is the customer-billed (tax-inclusive) figure, this card is the same order book net of the tax the merchant merely collects on the government’s behalf and never keeps.
| What it counts | SUM(total_ex_tax) across every order in the window. total_ex_tax is BigCommerce’s order total with the tax component removed: subtotal plus ex-tax shipping and handling, less discounts, before VAT or sales tax. |
| VAT / tax treatment | Tax excluded by definition. This is the whole point of the card. On a 20% UK VAT store, this figure sits roughly 16.7% below Total Revenue (tax is 20% of net, so 1/6th of gross). The exact gap depends on the blended tax rate across the basket, since zero-rated and reduced-rate items dilute it. |
| Shipping | Included, ex-tax. total_ex_tax contains the shipping charge net of any tax applied to shipping. Stores in jurisdictions that tax shipping (most of the EU, some US states) will see a slightly larger inc-tax vs ex-tax gap than stores that do not. |
| Discounts | Already deducted. total_ex_tax is the post-discount net figure. |
| Refunds | NOT deducted. Same treatment as Total Revenue, refunds live in a separate refunded_amount field and do not rewrite total_ex_tax. A fully refunded order still contributes its net value here. |
Cancelled / declined / Incomplete | Included with their original total_ex_tax, exactly as the gross card includes them. The ex-VAT view inherits the same status scope as the inc-VAT view so the two reconcile cleanly. |
| Currency | Multi-currency arithmetic sum WITHOUT FX conversion. Mixed-currency total_ex_tax values are summed into a single mixed-units number. Use a currencyCode-filtered view for international stores. |
| Channels / sources | Not filtered. Sums across every channel_id (Stencil web, Amazon, eBay, Facebook, Walmart, POS, B2B portal). Per-channel slicing via Revenue by Channel. |
| Time window | 30D vsP (rolling 30 days versus prior 30 days). |
| Alert trigger | Shares the revenue_trend sentiment with Total Revenue: a drop >15% vsP is the floor at which a net-revenue move is treated as real rather than noise. |
| Roles | owner, marketing, finance |
Calculation
total_ex_tax is read directly from the BigCommerce order, it is not derived by subtracting a tax estimate from the gross total. This matters: BigCommerce computes tax per line item against the customer’s tax zone, so the platform’s own ex-tax figure is more accurate than any gross / (1 + rate) shortcut, especially on mixed baskets of standard-rated and zero-rated goods.
Worked example
A UK home and garden brand on BigCommerce, VAT-registered at the standard 20% rate, with a slice of zero-rated children’s items. The 30-day window covers 14 Mar 26 to 12 Apr 26.| Basket type | Orders | Gross (total_inc_tax) | Net (total_ex_tax) | Effective tax % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Standard-rated (20% VAT) | 3,120 | £374,400 | £312,000 | 20.0% |
| Mixed (standard + zero-rated) | 880 | £92,400 | £80,300 | 15.1% |
| Zero-rated only (kids’ lines) | 410 | £28,700 | £28,700 | 0.0% |
| Store total | 4,410 | £495,500 | £421,000 | 17.7% blended |
- The blended tax rate is 17.7%, not 20%. A finance team that estimates net revenue as
gross ÷ 1.2would land on £412,917, understating true net by ~£8,000 a month, because that shortcut ignores the zero-rated lines. This card reads BigCommerce’s per-linetotal_ex_taxinstead, so it carries the correct blend automatically. - This is the number that reconciles to the accounts. When the bookkeeper posts the month to [Xero or QuickBooks via the accounting feed], the net-revenue line will match this card, not Total Revenue. If the owner reports gross to the board and the accountant reports net, the two will appear to disagree by ~£74,500 every month unless everyone knows which card they are quoting.
- The VAT itself (£74,500) is a liability, not income. The gap between this card and the gross card is the VAT the store collected and owes HMRC. Watching Total Tax Collected alongside this card tells the merchant their quarterly VAT exposure before the return is due.
Sibling cards merchants should reference together
| Card | Why pair it with Total Revenue (ex-VAT) |
|---|---|
| Total Revenue | The gross (tax-inclusive) twin. Read together: the gap between them is the VAT or sales tax the store collected. |
| Total Tax Collected | The exact size of that gap, the tax liability. Gross minus this card should equal Total Tax Collected. |
| AOV (ex-VAT) | The per-order net figure. This card divided by Order Count equals AOV (ex-VAT). |
| Order Count | The denominator. A net-revenue move with flat order count is a basket-size or tax-mix change. |
| Revenue by Channel | Net revenue per channel_id, useful when the headline net figure moves and you need to know which channel drove it. |
| Tax Collected Over Time | The trend of the tax slice. A rising tax share with flat net revenue usually means basket mix shifted toward standard-rated goods. |
Reconciling against the vendor’s own dashboard
Where to look in BigCommerce Control Panel: Analytics → Sales shows revenue figures, but the headline tile is tax-inclusive by default. For the ex-tax view, build a custom report under Reports → Orders and add the Total (ex tax) column, or export orders and sum thetotal_ex_tax field. BigCommerce’s tax reporting under Settings → Tax shows the collected-tax side, which is the difference between this card and the gross card.
Why our number may legitimately differ from the BC Control Panel:
| Reason | Direction of divergence |
|---|---|
| Time-zone. BC Control Panel runs on store timezone; Vortex IQ runs on UTC by default. Orders near midnight on boundary days fall on different sides. | ±1 day’s net revenue at the boundary |
Status filter. The BC Sales dashboard excludes Cancelled, Declined, and Incomplete by default; this card includes them to stay consistent with the gross card. | Vortex IQ higher than the BC Sales tile |
Currency. Multi-currency stores see a converted total in BC reports; Vortex IQ sums original-currency total_ex_tax without FX. | Material for international stores |
Tax engine timing. If a tax provider (Avalara, TaxJar) recalculated a zone after the order, BC’s stored total_ex_tax is the value at order time, which is what we read. | Negligible, self-consistent |
| Card | Expected relationship | What causes legitimate divergence |
|---|---|---|
| Accounting net revenue (Xero / QuickBooks) | Should match this card within rounding | The accounting system posts net of tax. This card is the closest BigCommerce figure to the bookkeeper’s top line. Persistent gaps usually trace to refund timing (accounting nets refunds in-period, this card does not). |
stripe.stripe_total_revenue | Stripe (gross) ≥ this card | Stripe captures the tax-inclusive charge. The right comparison is Stripe ≈ gross Total Revenue, not this card. |
Known limitations / merchant FAQs
Should I report gross or ex-VAT revenue to my board? Convention is ex-VAT (net), because VAT is not income, it is tax you collect and remit. Reporting gross overstates the business by the tax rate. Use this card for board reporting, investor updates, and any margin calculation. Use Total Revenue only when you genuinely mean the customer-billed total (for example, reconciling against a payment processor that captured the tax-inclusive charge). Why isn’t this just my gross revenue divided by 1.2? Because not every line is standard-rated. Zero-rated and reduced-rate items (children’s clothing, books, food in the UK; many categories vary by US state) dilute the blended rate below the headline VAT rate. This card reads BigCommerce’s per-linetotal_ex_tax, so it carries the true blend. The ÷ 1.2 shortcut systematically understates net revenue on any store with a mixed basket.
I am a US store with sales tax, not VAT. Does this card still apply?
Yes. total_ex_tax strips US sales tax exactly as it strips VAT. The card is labelled “ex-VAT” for the dominant audience, but the underlying field is jurisdiction-agnostic. US merchants reading this card see revenue before the sales tax they remit to each state.
Why is the gap between this card and Total Revenue different month to month?
Because basket mix moves. A month heavy on zero-rated or out-of-state (tax-exempt) orders shows a smaller gap; a month of standard-rated domestic orders shows a gap close to the full tax rate. A sudden change in the gap is itself a signal: it usually means your product mix or your customers’ geography shifted.
Does this deduct refunds?
No. Like the gross card, this is point-of-capture revenue. For a post-refund net view, read Refund Value alongside it and subtract.
My multi-currency store, what currency does this show?
The card sums total_ex_tax without FX conversion, producing a single mixed-currency number. Use the currencyCode-filtered view for a clean per-currency figure. Per-currency ex-VAT cards are on the roadmap.
Why does the alert use the same 15% threshold as gross revenue?
Because net and gross move together, a real revenue event shows up in both. The 15% floor suppresses tax-mix noise (a few extra zero-rated orders) while still catching genuine net-revenue drops. Low-volume stores can raise the threshold under Settings → Alerts → Sensitivity.