Important! To use the STORIS Alternate Tax Interface, you must
also be a licensed Vertex/CCH user with any necessary equipment required
by Vertex/CCH.The Alternate Tax Interface is an add-on feature available for purchase from STORIS. The interface works with the following third-party tax calculation programs:
Vertex® Transaction Processing - Sales Tax Series “O” package
CCH® Sales Tax Online
CCH® Sales Tax Office
When active, the Alternate Tax Interface bypasses the STORIS sales tax calculations and communicates with the sales tax calculation provider (Vertex Sales Tax Series “O” or CCH Sale Tax Online) on a real-time basis to retrieve the calculated sales tax amounts and other tax information.
Important! To use the STORIS Alternate Tax Interface, you must
also be a licensed Vertex/CCH user with any necessary equipment required
by Vertex/CCH.
If an alternate
tax interface is being used, global discounts cannot be applied to orders.
("Global" discounts are applied to the total order amount via
the Discount field on the Payments tab of Enter
a Sales Order.) The Discount field is inactive on the Payments tab
of order entry when the Alternate Tax Interface is active. You CAN apply
line item discounts when the Alternate Tax Interface is active.
If using the Miscellaneous
Fee feature, then for zip codes containing multiple cities, if you
charge fees at some but not all of the cities in the zip code, you should
identify each city separately using zip+4 codes.
CCH Sales Tax Office cannot be used with the Cloud
solution.
If using Vertex, when STORIS communicates with the alternate tax interface, Vertex provides:
tax calculations - billing, collecting and remitting the correct tax amount to the proper taxing authorities.
tax reporting - maintaining documentation and audit trails for tax auditors.
address cleansing - Vertex has an optional address cleansing component that provides accurate USPS postal addresses along with the proper 9-digit zip codes for U.S. Addresses. The 9-digit zip code is used to provide a more accurate geographic location and Alternate Tax ID in order to provide a more accurate taxing authority assignment.
Alternate Tax Identification - Vertex assigns a Tax Area ID to a specific geographic address. The assigned Tax Area ID is then used to associate the geographic address with the proper taxing authorities.
product taxable status - can be maintained by Vertex or STORIS.
customer tax-exempt status - can be maintained by Vertex or STORIS.
If you maintain taxable status settings in Vertex,
we recommend that you maintain taxable status settings in STORIS. If you
need to process take-with and customer-pickup orders offline, the process
uses the settings in STORIS. (See also: Vertex
Setup.)
You can group products based on a tax classification.
STORIS sends delivery, installation, and restocking charges to Vertex as line items. (You assign a Tax Class to delivery, installation, and restocking charges in Alternate Tax Interface Control Settings.)
Send the sales order product details and selling prices to the provider (Vertex), along with the customer’s account number, order and completion dates and applicable shipping and point of possession addresses.
The provider uses this information to determine the proper tax rates and amounts for that sales order.
STORIS uses the tax jurisdictions, rates, and amounts returned to update the existing order tax fields and order totals for payment purposes.
Send customer and store address information to the provider (Vertex) and retrieve the appropriate Tax ID’s for those addresses.
Retrieve cleansed customer address information from the provider (Vertex) if the address cleansing option is active. STORIS uses the cleansed address returned by the provider to update the customer’s address.
Requests for updated Alternate Tax ID’s and address cleansing occur during:
Initial Customer and Warehouse Location entry
Customer and Warehouse Location Address changes
Initial order entry if the Tax ID has expired. (Expiration is determined using the last date that the Tax ID was updated in the customer record, plus the Tax ID Expiration Days from Alternate Tax Interface Control Settings).
If communication with Vertex is unavailable, you can process take-with and customer-pickup orders offline and post them to Vertex later. To do so, you must set up the tax jurisdictions and rates for all of the warehouses and stores in STORIS.
If Vertex does not return tax amounts for delivery or direct ship orders (for example, due to communication errors or unresolved addresses), STORIS places delivery/direct-ship orders on T1 credit hold.
When STORIS communicates with the third-party tax package, CCH provides:
tax calculations - tax amounts for orders sent to CCH are calculated and returned to STORIS.
address cleansing - CCH has an optional address cleansing component that provides accurate USPS postal addresses along with the proper 9-digit zip codes for U.S. Addresses.
product taxable status - maintained in CCH.
tax jurisdiction names and amounts for STORIS locations (STORIS calculates rates) - used for offline take with & customer pickup orders.
Product taxable status can be maintained in CCH and in STORIS.
Customer taxable status must be maintained in STORIS.
If you maintain product taxable status settings
in CCH, we recommend you maintain these settings in STORIS. If you need
to process take-with and customer pickup orders offline, the settings
in STORIS are used. (See also: CCH Setup.)
Requests for updated Alternate Tax ID’s and address cleansing occur during:
Initial Customer and Warehouse Location settings entry
Customer and Warehouse Location address changes
Initial order entry if the Tax ID has expired. (Expiration is determined using the last date that the Tax ID was updated in the customer record, plus the Tax ID Expiration Days from Alternate Tax Interface Control Settings).
When an invalid address error is returned during creation or update of the customer, ship-to, or warehouse location settings, an override option is available. The system asks "Do you want to correct the customer/ship-to/location's address?" You can answer Yes to update the address or No if you want to accept the address as entered.
You send sales orders to CCH; provider (CCH) returns tax amounts.
CCH assigns internal Transaction ID.
If errors are returned from CCH due to expired/invalid transaction ID's, the system automatically removes the transaction ID from the order and resubmits the transaction to CCH immediately.
CCH returns tax jurisdiction names and amounts (STORIS calculates the rates) for warehouse locations; take-with and customer-pickup orders can be processed offline using this information.
If tax amounts are not returned from CCH for delivery or direct ship orders (due to communication errors), delivery/direct ship orders are placed on T1 hold.
When an invalid address error is returned during order entry, an override option is available. The system asks “Do you want to correct the customer’s address?”
If you answer Yes, the current order is placed on T1 hold. You can then update the shipping address of the order via the Shipping Information extra action. Once valid information has been entered the order is removed from T1 hold and taxes are applied.
If you answer No, an internal "override" is set, the address is accepted as entered and a new tax request is submitted to CCH.
Generate Daily Reports (End of Day) updates any exceptions.
This product offering from CCH works in addition to the features of CCH Sales Tax Online. Sales Tax Office offers more flexibility with the ability to set up tax information the way you need it, to suit the needs of your store. In addition to the features of Sales Tax Online, Sales Tax Office provides the additional ability to:
Set up customers as tax exempt
Maintain customers' tax ID numbers on the CCH server
Set up the tax jurisdictions you collect for and which you do not
If
you want STORIS' figures to coincide with CCH Office figures, you must
set CCH Office to report line item tax as 2 decimal places, rather than
3.
