Calculating sales taxes

No matter where you do business, you will need to charge a sales tax to your customers. To perform the tax calculation for each billing item, you have the following options:

Consider calculating sales tax in Autotask if:

  • you want to send invoices generated in Autotask
  • you want to include sales tax on quotes and estimates
  • You are doing business in a single or very few tax jurisdictions
  • you do not want to use the TaxJar integration

You will need to set up tax categories and tax regions, and associate your tax categories with your billing codes. Refer to Configuring your tax table and Configuration when invoicing from Autotask

Consider calculating sales tax using TaxJar if:

  • you do business in multiple tax jurisdictions in the US or Canada
  • you have offices, warehouses, and employees in multiple states
  • you would like to calculate taxes in Autotask on invoices, quotes, and estimates without having to manually maintain tax regions and categories

In most countries, the same sales taxes apply in the entire country. This means that there is only one tax region, or tax jurisdiction, and usually only a handful of tax categories.

This happy state does not apply to the United States or Canada. In the US, each state, county, and municipality is empowered to charge taxes, and both tax rates, and the rules when you are required to charge sales tax, can change with little notice. In Canada, taxation varies by province.

The Autotask TaxJar integration lets you use a top tax automation software that will keep you tax compliant, once set up. Refer to The TaxJar integration.

Consider calculating sales tax in QuickBooks if:

  • QuickBooks is your accounting application

To transfer billing items as taxable to QuickBooks, you will need to set up one default tax region that is used for all customers, and a Taxable tax category that is used on taxable billing codes.

If you are new to QuickBooks, confirm that your QuickBooks data file includes at least one tax agency vendor account and two tax codes:

  • In the US: Tax and Non
  • In Canada and the UK: S and E

Refer to QuickBooks Tax Settings.

Consider calculating sales tax in your accounting application if:

  • you will not be generating invoices in Autotask
  • you will not be calculating taxes on quotes and estimates
  • your accounting application has the tax calculation functions you need

You will simply need to reference a GL code or tax code for each Autotask billing code, and the correct tax is applied after the transfer.

Refer to Configuration when exporting your billing transactions.