Sneak Preview: PowerKit for FluentCart – The German/EU Compliance Layer
I've been working on something that solves several critical gaps in FluentCart, particularly around tax display and EU market compliance.
This quick video shows how PowerKit for FluentCart transforms the checkout experience by properly handling:
- ✅ Tax-inclusive pricing display (as required by German/EU law)
- ✅ Correct tax information throughout the customer journey
What else is coming in PowerKit:
- Flexible ShortCodes – Add-to-Cart, Buy-Now, product displays, and price widgets with proper tax info for any product or variation
- Smart Invoice Numbers – Dynamic numbering based on date patterns and custom formatting
- Native Builder Integration – Access FluentCart products directly in Etch Builder and Bricks Builder (no more workarounds!)
This is built specifically for those of us operating in markets where "close enough" isn't good enough for compliance.
Curious to hear your thoughts on what you see in the preview!
Jorge de los Reyes, what do you think?
it's what i need. How to get the plugin ? There is also a display issue with the pop-up when a product has a recurring subscription + a fixed amount. The fixed amount does not appear.
Jéjé immobilier it’s not yet available. It is still alpha, and I wanted to get some insights first. I will clean up some things and then offer that to the community.
Hi André Daus, thank you for the mention!
I’m confident this will be genuinely useful for many EU merchants: congratulations!
One small suggestion (just my two cents): when tax is not applicable, you may want to consider this: I think it would be cleaner not to show any tax estimate at all. That alone would remove unnecessary friction during checkout.
That aside -congrats again!
Proper tax naming and customization are simple features, but incredibly powerful when done right.
I believe it was Natascha Vantuykom who originally pointed me to the option of customizing tax names, so I’m not entirely sure whether this now overlaps with recent core updates.
As I mentioned in the community, for EU merchants, correct tax identification isn’t a “nice to have”: it’s mandatory, and liabilities are pretty real. IMHO, anything that helps with compliance is automatically a must-have.
Recently, I was reading how Natascha pointed out that VAT can disappear from invoices on subscription renewals...
That’s simply dangerous from a fiscal standpoint. And I think we all are in the same wavelength: merchants (no matter how much we enjoy tinkering) shouldn’t have to worry about whether VAT will show up on the next sale or renewal, or whether taxes are being correctly identified.
I am sure powerkit could probably remove not a few headaches for EU merchants in this regard.
I believe EU-compliant XML invoices are still pending for a future update. Hopefully we’ll see improvements in the core here soon, so the focus isn’t “will this break on the next renewal?” but rather how to fully leverage the powerful features already shipped.
Eg.: Paywalls, which many of us would love to use more aggressively if these basic (yet unavoidable) EU requirements were fully covered.
Just to have the feeling that, being an EU merchant using FC is a safe and wise move that would not require many twitches to the settings.
Great power, with great responsability I guess :)
I think, FC definitely needs some love regarding all the EU and international tax regulations compliance.
Jorge de los Reyes thank you. I try to use FluentCart functions as much as possible to keep it working across updates. So the tax names are in the database, and yes, you can change them manually. But I did not want to change all 98 tax names one by one, so I added it as a function to do this automatically by just pressing a button.
I also would like to hide the tax if it is zero/not applicable. I am planning to create a custom checkout. This that, it would be simple to remove the tax. But then the last release came and now you can customize it pretty good. Further, if we hide the zero tax on the frontend, it should also be removed from the receipts and invoices.
But I will see what I can do here.
The XML invoices, I will leave to the FluentCart team. 😎
Thanks for sharing the sneak peek. It's looking very good. I particularly like the option that let's you change the button text and adds the total amount. That's nice to have for everyone outside of Germany as well where it's not strictly required. It's just better UX 😀
Are the included shortcodes outputting larger chunks of functionality or will there be extra shortcodes to more precisely output smaller bits? For example, a shortcode that returns just the featured image, another for the gallery, another for just the regular price, etc.?
F. C. I have a bunch of shortcodes. One is for the product details and it has several switches to turn on/off image, price, stock status, etc. Same as the buttons (add to cart/buy now), you can use them as button only, or add a quantity selector to let the user decide how much they want. Most also take a CSS class to style the button as you want with CSS.
Some smaller ones are still planned for price, image, description. But I am still thinking of putting it into one, and then you can select what detail you want to show.
I need to check what I have, what might get dumped, and what needs to be added. I’ll try that tomorrow and create a sneak peak for shortcodes.
André Daus Nice, looking forward to it!
Looking forward to the release! Will you release it as etch components, for etch users?
Robert Feddes yes, that is the plan. It currently adds the data to the queries. Going forward, I’d like to add components, too. I am waiting for the Etch Components API.
André Daus Any news on your release date? Tnks!
Robert Feddes will shoot the Alpha to the store asap. But I need to get some things straight with FluentCart first.
"Native Builder Integration – Access FluentCart products directly in Etch Builder and Bricks Builder (no more workarounds!)"
Do you take requests for other page builders as well? An integration for the Cornerstone page builder from Themeco would be amazing. There's at least a couple of people here who use Cornerstone, including myself.
F. C. that depends. And it is the reason for the shortcodes. They usually work everywhere. I need it in Etch and I have some clients who need it for Bricks. Hence these will be first.
Also, there might be development in the core, too.
André Daus Yes I guess you're right. It's just FluentCart-specific Dynamic Content missing then. Especially for things like the product ID and variation ID which are likely required to include with your shortcodes for them to work properly outside of the standard FC product pages and archives? In Etch the equivalent is "Dynamic Data Keys" and in Bricks "Dynamic Data".
Cornerstone integration has indeed been requested to the WPManageNinja team, but if it happens it will be a good while still.
I was swamped with other tasks. And the current version of the plugin is still in Alpha. I will check FluentCart on the weekend and then offer the plugin for free while in Alpha. Then you can test if it fits your use-cases.
So the plugin is still in alpha. If you want to try it, you are welcome to download it here: https://littlebig.co/products/powerkit/
Please share any feedback here: https://littlebig.co/contact/?help=feedback
DO NOT INSTALL ON A PRODUCTION ENVIRONMENT!
André Daus is it working for France ?
Jéjé immobilier it basically works for all EU countries. I mainly need it for renaming tax appropriately, change the “place order” button, shortcodes, and using in Etch builder. The plugin is on my side, too. My site runs on Etch, but the store is not yet live due to some features missing or not working stable enough. Hence, the warning to not install in production.
I am working on the documentation, too. Maybe, you want to wait for it to be released first.
André Daus Great job thanks !
Nice, ordered and downloaded, will play with it