Two Qs - VAT and Order with no transaction

sorry - make that three Qs

I have a client who has asked me to create a site with three specific requests
(happy to code PHP if necessary - even happier if e-cart & univ email can handle!)

This situation is slightly different and doesn't require an immediate transaction/purchase

As my client is an event management service, all orders need to be passed by my client before payment can be processed, and space, resources etc released to the users.

1-2 Simple ones first...

1
Some of their items are VAT free
Q:can e-Cart assign individual VAT amounts to items?

2
Q: can e-Cart assign one off discounts to individuals (by discount code)? and/or time dependent discounts (offer open until end of Nov 2009)

lastly

3
Q: Can e-Cart provide a way for a user to place an order (get an email)
that is later confirmed by my client (send an email)
User returns to the site to see if pending orders have been confirmed. Purchasing those that have been. (user gets transaction email)


tia

You can handle the individual VAT for items by having a VAT column in your cart, you do not have to display this column but it can hold this individual value for each item in the cart. You will also need to create a calculated column that will calculate the applied VAT for that item by multiplying the VAT times the quantity. You can use the total price calculation as a basis for this. Then for the tax rule to apply the appropriate VAT tax you can just create the charged based on the subtotal of your total VAT for all the items.

You can assign discounts with codes in eCart, on the support page for eCart in the Solution Recipes section is one titled 'Creating a Coupon system for your eCart store'. This is a great example of this type of setup and may give you some ideas on how you would like to have yours.

ecart/

For the custom ordering you have have a page that sends the user an email with Universal Email. Whatever processing you do in the scripts you can have the Universal Email server behavior send out the email afterwards.