First, Set Global System Tax Settings

System sales tax settings are located in Settings / Edit Sales Tax in your Nexternal Order Management System (OMS). You may charge sales tax on products anywhere in the world. In all cases, sales tax is charged based on the Ship-To or Pickup Location Address, and not the Bill-To or Contact Address. For each jurisdiction, you may charge sales tax by location only on products, or on product and shipping.

For the source of your tax rates, you may enter your own, or you may select from the 3rd party tax tables integrated into the Nexternal platform (domestic only; free), or ShipCompliant (if integrated; charges apply), or Avalara (if integrated; charges apply).

The ? tooltip for the sales tax settings in the OMS lays out the instructions for setting and modifying the sales tax rates. Additionally, to set up sales tax we recommend you take the steps in the Guided Tutorial called "Set/Modify Domestic Sales Tax in Nexternal". (Guided Tutorials are accessed separately from the Support Center in Foundry, through the link to Guided Tutorials in the system navigation under the question mark at the top. In the legacy standalone version of Nexternal they can be accessed through the Guided Tutorials link in the left navigation.)

If you are pulling rates from the 3rd party tax tables integrated into the Nexternal platform, the data includes over 40,000 sales tax records at the state, county, and city levels and is automatically updated monthly. When an order is placed, the sales tax rate is looked up in the Third-Party Tax Database based on the Ship-To State and Zip Code; if no match is found, the State Average is used. Please note that these built-in tables are not specific to alcohol so there may be an occasional variance between sales tax specific to alcohol and sales tax charged based on these tables. For specific alcohol taxes, consider integrating with Ship Compliant.

Second, Address Sales Tax on the Product Level if Necessary

Once your global sales tax settings are set up, it's important to note that these system-wide settings apply to each product in your OMS, unless you modify them on the product level.

The Taxable field on the product setup page determines the product's taxability when shipped to an address in the United States, a U.S. Protectorate, or Canada. Three options are available:

All: The product is taxable in all states and provinces that you indicated in your global settings should be taxable.
None: The product is not taxable in any state/province, regardless of your global settings - this is a complete override of those settings.
State: Taxability is determined on a state-by-state basis from among the states and provinces designated as taxable at Settings/Sales Tax. This allows partial override of the global settings.

Notes:
These product-level override options do not apply to countries outside of the United States, U.S. Protectorates, and Canada when the Charge Sales Tax in Other Countries option (Settings / Sales Tax) is on. Products are always taxable when shipped to such countries.
Sales tax is never charged to customers of a type that is not subject to tax (Customers / Types), regardless of the status of the global sales tax settings or this field.

So, for example, if in your global setting you have indicated that you are charging sales tax in AZ, CA, CT, GA, NY and WA, then the default section on each product setup page will look like this:

The Selection of "All" is likely correct on most products; it means that sales tax will be charged in all states that are listed because you selected them in your global settings, but not in any states that weren't selected in the global settings.

It is unnecessary and in fact discouraged to check each state box here, if the product is subject to sales tax in all the shown states - the global settings already apply. We recommend that you NOT manage sales tax by State on the product level unless it's necessary for a specific business reason - for example, if most products are subject to sales tax in NY and all the other shown states, but this particular product is subject to sales tax in all shown states except NY. In this case, you would select all states except NY:

If this particular product is not taxable anywhere, despite your global sales tax settings, then you would select None.

Create a Sales Tax Report in the OMS

Navigate in the OMS to Orders / Report (blue button at the top) / Sales Tax Report. Select your date or order number range (or the results of the current search if you first segmented via an Advanced Search). Select Sales Tax Report, and your Report Basis, then click Create Report.

rev. 12/9/21