Configure AvaTax in Avalara

When you have multiple companies or entities in Sage Intacct, set up one company in Avalara for each company or entity for which you want to file a separate tax return.

You also create a nexus for each tax jurisdiction in which you have a business location.

Log in

When you sign up for an Avalara AvaTax account, Avalara sends you an email with your username and a temporary password. You'll use this username and password to manually log in to the Avalara Dashboard.

To access the Avalara login page:

1. Either go to the main Avalara website and click the Sign in link in the top right corner of the pager, or go directly to http://www.avalara.com/signin.
2. Select Avalara AvaTax & Avalara Returns.
3. Enter your username and password. If you are logging in for the first time, reset your password when prompted.
4. Click Sign in. The Avalara Dashboard appears.

Create a user for Intacct's access to AvaTax

When Intacct makes web service calls to AvaTax to have taxes calculated, a username and password is used for automatic log in to AvaTax. A best practice is to create a dedicated user for Intacct's access to AvaTax. (Avalara does not charge for the number of users that you set up in Avalara.)

When you configure AvaTax in Intacct, you'll enter the username and password for this dedicated user in the Configure Avalara Tax page.

To create a new user:

1. On the main menu, go to Settings > Users and then select Add a user.
2. Enter your first and last name and email address.
3. Enter a Username that clearly identifies this user as the dedicated user for Intacct's access to AvaTax. For example, you might enter AvataxWebservice. Avoid using a hyphen (-) in the name.
4. Select an appropriate Access level, such as Account.
5. Select an appropriate Permissions, such as Administrator.
6. Click Save. Avalara will email you the temporary password for this new user.
7. Log in to Avalara with the new username and temporary password and reset the password to something permanent.
   Make note of the username and password. You'll enter them in the Dashboard user ID and Dashboard password fields when you configure AvaTax in Intacct.

Create a company

Create one or more companies that use the Avalara sales tax integration. If you have a single Intacct company, you only set up one company here. If you have more than one Intacct company or entity, then you set up one company for each Intacct company or entity for which you want to file a separate tax return.

To create one or more companies:

1. On the main menu, go to Settings > Manage companies.
2. On the Your companies page, click Add a company. The Company Setup wizard starts.
3. Complete the steps in the wizard.
   In the Company Code field, many organizations find it helpful to set the company code in Avalara to match the Company ID in Sage Intacct. If you follow this convention, use an underscore for spaces in the Company ID name.
   The wizard automatically sets up a nexus for collecting tax for the state of your primary business location. You can add more regions in the wizard or add them later.

   You can activate the company in the wizard or activate it later.

4. To add another company, repeat steps 1 through 3.
You can use parent-child relationships when setting up multi-company scenarios. If you select a parent company, you can select whether the child company is a separate reporting entity and whether the child inherits the tax nexus from the parent company or maintains its own.

Activate a company

If you did not activate your company or companies as you created them up in the setup wizard, you need to activate them so they can use AvaTax.

To activate a company:

1. On the main menu, go to Settings > Manage companies.
2. On the Your companies page, select Details (or Finish setup) for each company you want to activate.
   Click Inactive to display just the companies that have yet to be activated.
3. If the Company page appears, click Active at the bottom of the page. If the Activate Sage Intacct page appears, click Activate company.

Select additional regions for which to collect tax

When you create a company in AvaTax, a nexus is automatically set up for the state in which your primary business location resides. Nexus determines where and when AvaTax calculates and reports tax for your company.

During company setup you were prompted to add other states or regions where you need to collect tax. You can add other states or regions if you did not add them during setup or as your business grows.

To set up individual regions for which to collect tax:

1. On the main menu, go to Settings > Where you collect tax.
2. If you need to change to the company to the one where you want to add regions, click Switch company, find the company in the list, and click Select.
3. Ensure Sales and use tax is selected.
4. Click Add to where you collect sales and use tax.
5. Select the additional states to add and click Add selected regions.
6. Optional. Change the default values in the Effective and Expiration fields if you need to adjust the date range in which tax will be applied to each state.
   To set begin and end dates for a specific local jurisdiction in the state, edit that local jurisdiction.

   In most cases, you'll charge sales tax for all areas within a state. However, sometimes a particular county might have given your business an exemption, usually for a certain period of time.You can choose to manage local jurisdiction selectively to remove that county or limit the dates in that county for which you charge tax.

7. When you are through setting state and local jurisdictions, click Done with tax jurisdictions.

You have completed setting up the sales tax nexuses. You can edit these settings using these same steps.

AvaTax tax codes

Avalara maintains a list of about 3000 standard tax codes, which specify the type of item sold, to calculate the relevant tax. These tax codes enable Avalara to be very precise in deciding how much, if any, tax to charge for each item because the same item can be taxed differently across jurisdictions. However, specifying a tax code for items in Sage Intacct is optional. If you do not provide a tax code, Avalara considers the item or product taxable by default and charges the standard tax rate from the tax jurisdiction.

You will have access to all standard tax codes, or for an additional fee, Avalara will work with you to define a custom list of tax codes that exactly match what you sell.

For a list of the Avalara tax codes, go to Get AvaTax codes for goods and services where you can export the tax codes into an Excel file (.xlsx). The Excel file has several convenient controls to help you select the tax code you want.

Your Avalara account is now set up.

The next step in the basic setup is to prepare your Sage Intacct company for the integration.