Tax Categories and Tax Rates

Setting Up Your Tax Categories and Tax Rates

The system makes it easy to calculate sales tax rate on all of your items.  We even get you started with a No Tax category.  You will first set up your tax categories, such as retail, food, alcohol, etc.  Then, you will decide which tax category should be your default tax category. Later, when you create your items in your inventory, the system will automatically assign your default tax category to the items for you to save you time.  

Tax Jurisdictions

The system also allows you to set up and report on multiple tax jurisdictions that are calculated independently of each other for those selling locations that require unique tax scenarios.  We will also itemize the tax jurisdictions on the receipt, as is often required by local regulations.  The tax jurisdictions are tied to your tax categories and selling locations.  This means when you add a selling location, you can designate any local tax jurisdictions.  Additionally, if you have already set up your tax locations and categories, you can simply edit the tax location to enable tax jurisdictions.

 

Add a Tax Category

Scenario 1: Set Up a Primary Tax Category

When we first see the Taxes screen, it looks like this.  Notice that our company name is listed as our Location Name.  This was done when we initially registered our account.  It is our default or "home" location.  We won't be able to edit or delete this location name.   You may also notice that we already have the default tax category of No Tax set up for us.

We are a cafe, so we need to set up a tax category for Food and then enter the tax rate for Fulton County GA.  To do this, we click ADD A TAX CATEGORY and set up a tax category named Food and make it our default tax category, since we sell food items, and click Done.

Then, we click in the box below our new Food tax category and enter the food tax of 5.25% for Fulton County, GA and click Save.  When we're done, our Taxes screen looks like this.  If you see any small, red triangles, they show you where information on the screen has changed since the last save.

That's it!  Our taxes are all set up, and we are ready to start entering our items in our inventory.  Remember, we made Food our default tax category, so all the items we create will be automatically assigned to the Food tax category.  However, if we have some items that are not taxed, we can simply click the Tax Category dropdown for that item and change the tax category from Food to No Tax.

By default, your store already has a No Tax tax category for use with tax-exempt items.  To add a tax category:

1. Click the Settings icon located at the top-right corner of the screen.
2. Select Taxes.
3. Click the ADD A TAX CATEGORY button.
4. A screen will appear for you to enter a descriptive name, select if it is default or make inclusive. If you select inclusive tax, the tax amount and the item sell price will combine to show one total on the POS (as opposed to tax amount and item amount.) However, your reporting will still show separate totals.
5. Click Done.
6. Enter the tax rate % that applies to the items in the tax category (such as, 3.250) into the tax percentage field. If you have multiple selling locations, you will need to enter the tax rate for every selling location.
7. Click Save.
8. If your merchandise requires multiple tax categories, repeat this process for every tax category you need to create.

Edit a Tax Category

If you want to edit an existing tax category:

1. Click the Settings icon located at the top-right corner of the screen.
2. Select Taxes.
3. View your tax categories and then:
   • Click inside any of the tax category boxes to enter/edit the tax rate, and/or
   • Click on the tax category's name to edit the name of the tax category
4. Click Done to save your changes.

Remove a Tax Category

If you want to remove a tax category you have already set up:

1. Click the Settings icon located at the top-right corner of the screen.

1. Select Taxes.
2. Click on the name of the tax category you want to delete.
3. Click Delete to delete the tax category.  The Delete button will only be enabled if there are no items assigned to this tax category.  The system will display an alert to let you confirm removing the tax category:

• Click Yes to remove the tax category.  If the selected tax category has any sales activity, the system will let you know, so that you can determine if you still want to remove the tax category.
• Click No to keep the tax category.

Removing  a tax category is a "soft delete".  This means that although the tax category is removed from your view, all the data and activity associated with that tax category is still shown in reports, transactions, etc..

Do you sell from multiple locations that require different tax rates (such as a food truck that moves between municipalities)?