Tax Automation with Avalara

introduction avalara https //www avalara com/us/en/index html is tax automation for businesses with real time tax calculation and automatic returns filing suppose you want to sell something in augusta, georgia do you have a local sales tax or not? classifying a sale in avalara and inputting the proper address of where you're selling your item automatically states the correct tax rate prerequisites make sure that you have created your account in avalara in the oms, navigate to settings > store in the environment variables, scroll down and the following variables values notes avatax account \<your avalara account number> located under settings in your avalara account avatax company code default avatax license key \<your avalara licence key> your license key is emailed to you by avalara when you set up your account avatax log enabled true avatax origin { "line1" "123 lafayette street", "line2" "city" "new york," "region" "ny," "postalcode" "10013", "country" "us" } make sure that your hq address is formatted as follows 123 lafayette being an example here avatax tax calculation enabled true avatax enabled navigate to taxes click on tax categories tab and click new tax category tax categories are used to group tax rates together—all products and shipping methods are assigned a tax category please refer to this list of tax codes https //taxcode avatax avalara com/ from avalara to ensure that your codes are accurate provide a name and the tax code default checkbox when checked this tax category will be selected by default when creating new products or variants if you're primarily selling one category of good/service, select the checkbox the rules for collecting sales tax on shipping charges can be complex for each state; therefore, avalara's whitepaper offers guidance on what to watch out for when it comes to sales tax and shipping click on tax rate tab and click on new tax rate tax rates associate a tax category with a geographic zone and a rate calculator (and also determine whether the tax is included in the item's original amount or not) below is an example of filling out the tax rate make sure to enter $0 00 in the rate field as avalara will automatically calculate it avalara settings tab reflect the values entered in the environment variables done above click on avalara entity use codes if you are planning to exempt some customers from paying taxes the code field is the value you will use, and the field name is the description you will show to the customer you can either show “code name”, like "a federal gov", or you can just show the name field entity use codes are one method for keeping track of tax exempt customer transactions when entering transactions with an entity use code, avatax will exempt the transaction as long as the code is valid for the customer and region where the transaction takes place once everything has been setup, we recommend you created a manual order and click on test connection in avalara settings tab you can select the tax exempt code for your customers in the users table you have just finished setting up your avalara tax!