Configure AvaTax in Sage Intacct

AvaTax is a Web-based tax service that calculates the sales tax owed on the sale and purchase of goods and services. Learn more about AvaTax.

The Configure Avalara Tax page enables you to configure your company for use with AvaTax. You can enter your Avalara account info and select options to:

• Enable tax calculation for one or more of the following applications:
  • Accounts Receivable
  • Order Entry
  • Purchasing
• Track tax revenue using a specific GL account
• If mailing addresses do not exist, enable the use of latitude and longitude coordinates as addresses in the tax calculations

Requirement: For the AvaTax integration to work, Avalara also needs to be configured for use with Intacct, which means that at least one matching company and one nexus is configured for Intacct in Avalara. See Configure AvaTax in Avalara.

To access the Configure Avalara Tax page, go to Company > Admin > Subscriptions. Find Avalara Tax, and click Configure (or Subscribe).

Enter your Avalara account information

If you are newly subscribing to Avalara Tax integration in Intacct, the Configure Avalara Tax page appears automatically after you subscribe to Avalara Tax on the Subscriptions page (Company > Admin > Subscriptions).

Before you can configure Avalara Tax for your Intacct company, you need to enter the authorization credentials.

1. Copy and paste your Avalara Account ID and License key into their respective fields. This information is located in the activation email that Avalara sent you. Contact Avalara to resend the email if you can't locate it.
2. Enter the Avalara Dashboard user ID and Dashboard password. This is the username and password for the dedicated user you set up in Avalara for Intacct's access to AvaTax. When Intacct makes web service calls to AvaTax to have taxes calculated, this user ID and password are used for automatic log in to AvaTax.

   Learn about creating a dedicated user for Intacct's access to AvaTax.

3. Enter your Avalara Company Code. This is the unique code you entered in Avalara to identify your newly-created Avalara company. Your Intacct transactions are mapped to the Avalara company identified by this code.
   After you've created a transaction, you can no longer change the company code. This prevents Avalara from creating any duplicate sales transactions in multiple Avalara companies.
4. By default, Avalara sends tax calculations directly to your production Intacct account. If you first want to send these calculations to a test account, select the Environment dropdown arrow and then select Test. When you are ready to start computing taxes on your production account, be sure to switch back to production mode and configure the proper Avalara account for sales tax management.

Now you are ready to configure Avalara Tax for calculating tax in your Intacct applications, as described in the following section.

Enable AvaTax for the appropriate applications

After your company is configured for use with Avalara, you can select the applications for which you want Avalara to calculate tax.

1. Go to Company > Admin > Subscriptions. Find Avalara Tax, and click Configure. The Configure Avalara Tax page appears.
2. Under Intacct settings, select the transactions for which you want Avalara to automatically calculate the tax You can specify any combination for any combination of Accounts Receivable, Order Entry, or Purchasing transactions.
   To enable your AR application, enter an AR tax account label to track the tax revenue (liability). Learn how to create a tax account label.

3. For Countries, select US-UNITED STATES so that sales tax will be calculated.

4. Select Enable line-level distribution to enable the system to apply and display calculations, such as taxes, discounts, and shipping, per transaction line item in the applications you selected (Applies only to Order Entry and Purchasing.)
5. Select Enable latitude and longitude coordinates for addresses to specify latitude and longitude coordinates as the address for the contacts in your company. The system sends the coordinates to AvaTax to use as the address in the sales tax calculations. You only need to enable and use coordinates when you can't identify a mailing address for your Ship to contacts.
6. To display and print all details for your tax jurisdiction on your invoices, select the Use detail tax lines checkbox.
   • Selecting this checkbox displays separate lines for state/territory, county, and local sales taxes, rather than a single line that shows only the total sales tax incurred.
   • Clearing this checkbox displays a single line of sales tax on your invoice.

After saving this configuration, proceed to setting up each enabled application for use with AvaTax as listed below:

Set up Intacct AR	Set up Intacct OE	Set up Intacct PO
Define sales tax subtotal label in AR	Map Avalara tax codes to items	Map Avalara tax codes to items
Map Avalara tax code to an AR account label	Enter a contact address for warehouse to determine accurate tax calculation for inventory items	Define purchasing tax subtotal in purchasing transaction definitions
Configure AR to use unique invoice numbers	Define sales tax subtotal in sales invoice transaction definitions	Set vendors as taxable or non-taxable (default is taxable)
Set customers as taxable or non-taxable (default is taxable)	Set customers as taxable or non-taxable (default is taxable)	Provide addresses for vendors, including Return to contacts
Provide addresses for customers, including Ship to contacts.	Provide addresses for customers , including Ship to contacts
Provide exemption use codes for customers and Ship to contacts.	Provide exemption use codes for Ship to contacts.

Use ISO country codes for Ship To and Ship From addresses

The ISO country code aligns with ISO 3166-1 standard country codes. Turning on ISO country codes in your company enables AvaTax to accurately determine tax, eliminating the risk of incorrect interpretation. The ISO country code lists U.S. and foreign addresses separately for computing tax.

1. Go to Company > Setup > Configuration.

   The Company information page appears.

2. Select Edit.
3. To turn on the country code for your address, in the Company information section on the General Information tab, select the Use ISO country codes checkbox.

Enter address information to enable AvaTax calculation

As part of your application setup, make sure that the following addresses and codes are available for AvaTax calculation:

Set up Company	Set up AR	Set up OE	Set up PO
Company address.	Customer Ship to contact is used to determine tax. The Ship To address is retrieved from the customer record, unless a Ship To contact is specified on the transaction.	Customer Ship to contact is used to determine tax. The Ship To address is retrieved from the customer record, unless a Ship To contact is specified on the transaction.	Location/entity on the transaction line item is used to determine tax. Vendor Return-to contact is used to determine transaction origin.
If multi-entity, provide valid addresses for entities.		Warehouse contact address is used to determine tax for inventory items	Warehouse contact address is used to determine tax for inventory items
Exemption use codes	Provide exemption use codes for customers and Ship to contacts.	Provide exemption use codes for Ship to contacts.

Field descriptions

The following table describes the fields in the Configure Avalara tax page.

Avalara settings

Avalara settings field descriptions

Field	Description
Account ID	Your Avalara Account ID, provided by Avalara, entered at the top level of your company, and valid for all entities if any. As a result, you can't replace or change this ID at an entity level of your company.
License key	Your Avalara license key provided by Avalara. Displays only when configuring Avalara for the top-level company
Dashboard user ID and Dashboard password	Enables automatic log in to Avalara when Intacct makes web service calls to Avalara to have taxes calculated. This is the username and password of the dedicated user you set up in Avalara for Intacct's access to AvaTax. (Create a user for Intacct's access to AvaTax.) While you could use your own Avalara login credentials, which you use to manually log in to the Avalara Dashboard for reporting and other tasks, a better practice is to use the credentials of a dedicated user for the web service calls. In a multi-entity environment, this field appears only when you are configuring Avalara at the top level.
Company code	The unique code you entered in Avalara to create your Avalara company. After you create a transaction at this entity, you cannot change this code.
Environment	If you want to check whether the system is correctly calculating your sales tax, we suggest you click test to run the integration in a test environment. You can return to the Environment box and click Production whenever you want to go live. To work in test mode: Create fake transactions in Intacct Click the subtotals Calculate link. Examine the tax subtotal to ensure it is correct. Not editable when configuring Avalara at the entity level

Intacct settings

Intacct settings field descriptions

Field	Description
Use Avalara to calculate taxes in	Select the applications that you will use with AvaTax. Accounts Receivable Order Entry Purchasing Not editable when configuring Avalara at the entity level.
Tax label	If you enable AR, this field appears. Enter an AR tax account label to track the tax revenue (liability).
Countries	Select US-UNITED STATES to charge sales tax in the United States. For taxes outside the United States, you can select other countries.
Enable line-level distribution	Enables the system to enable to apply and display calculations, such as taxes, discounts, and shipping, per transaction line item in the applications you selected. (Applies to Order Entry and Purchasing only.) This option is enabled by default if the Enable ship-to contact at the line level option is selected on the Configure Order Entry page.
Enable latitude and longitude coordinates for addresses	Enables you to specify latitude and longitude coordinates for the contacts in your company. You only need to enable and use coordinates when you can't identify a mailing address for your Ship to contacts. Intacct sends the coordinates to AvaTax to use as the addresses in the sales tax calculations. AvaTax returns results only if the latitude and longitude coordinates pinpoint a location within the United States. For example, if you deliver goods or services to a rural work site without a mailing address, you can specify a customer Ship to contact that has latitude and longitude coordinates to ensure accurate tax determination.

Printed document settings

Printed document settings field descriptions

Field	Description
Use detail tax lines	Displays a separate tax line for each tax jurisdiction. This checkbox appears only when configuring Avalara for the top-level company. By default, the checkbox is unselected.