Avalara AvaTax

StoreConnect supports calculating taxes using your Avalara AvaTax account. Avalara AvaTax is a cloud-based solution automating transaction tax calculations and the tax filing process. Avalara provides real-time tax calculation using tax content from more than 12,000 US taxing jurisdictions and over 200 countries, ensuring your transaction tax is calculated based on the most current tax rules.

Configuring AvaTax

Create an Avalara Account

This feature requires an Avalara account. Sign up with Avalara if you don’t already have an account.

Connect to AvaTax

Once you have an account, you will need to connect your StoreConnect store to your Avalara account. To do so, follow these steps:

Create a Tax Provider

  1. From the Store record, find the Tax Providers related list and click ‘New’
  2. Choose “Avalara” from the Provider picklist
  3. Enter your Avalara AvaTax credentials (see below)
  4. Configure AvaTax (see below)
  5. Save the record
  6. Test the Connection (see below)

Enter your Avalara AvaTax Credentials

Enter your Avalara AvaTax credentials in the following fields:

Note: Your API Mode should be sandbox and then later be changed to production when you are going live.

Configure AvaTax

Once you have connected your StoreConnect store to your Avalara account, you will need to configure your store to use AvaTax. Here are the configuration options:

Configuring a Fallback Address

You can use the Fallback Address fields to configure a fallback address to use as the Ship From Address. Normally, StoreConnect will use the address of the Stock Location that is fulfilling the order as the Ship From Address. However in cases where there is no Stock Location, or it doesn’t have an address, or if you are not using Stock Management, we will use the Fallback Address fields on the Tax Provider record instead. We recommend providing a fallback address.

Assign an Avalara tax exempt category to a customer

Use Tax Entity Code on the Account record to assign an Avalara tax exempt category to an existing customer. Select one of the options from the picklist.

Assign an AvaTax System Tax Code to a Product

Use Tax Code on a Product record to assign an AvaTax System Tax Code to a Product. Any tax code you assign will be passed through to AvaTax for tax calculation. If you do not assign a tax code, Avatax’s default tax code will be used. To see a listing of all available AvaTax System tax codes, visit [http://taxcode.avatax.avalara.com].

Ensure the Shipping Product has a product code

StoreConnect has a dedicated product that is assigned to Shipping line items. Set a value in the StoreConnect Shipping Product’s Product Code so you can identify it as the shipping product in AvaTax transactions.

Advanced Configuration Options

You can use the Configuration Options field to set additional advanced configuration options. Options are only required to be set if you intend to override the default value. They should be on their own line and should follow the format: “{option_name}: {option value}”. Here are the available options:

Option Name Expected Value Default Value Setting Effect
commit_transactions true or false false If true commits all transactions in Avalara. Not applicable when disable_invoices is true
disable_invoices true or false false If true, does not create transactions in Avalara for invoices
log_requests true or false false If true, turns logging on. All API requests and responses will be logged in the Tax Provider Log object
log_limit integer 1000 Sets the number of rows to keep in the log. When the log reaches the limit, the oldest rows will be deleted

Test the Connection

Once you have configured your store to use Avalara, you can test the connection to ensure everything is working properly. Use the Test button in the Connectivity panel on the Tax Provider record page. If the connection is successful, you will see a message indicating the connection was successful. If the connection is not successful, you will see an error message indicating the problem.

 

 
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