Manage your tax rates

You define your sales-tax rates once for the whole store, mark one of them the default, and then assign rates to individual products where they differ. You need the admin or super role.

Go to Administration → General. The card is called Tax Configuration.

Add a rate

1. Press Add rate.
2. Name — what this rate is, in your own words. It appears on the receipt when more than one rate applies to a sale, so name it the way you would explain it: State Sales Tax, City, Prepared Food.
3. Rate (%) — the percentage, as a percentage. Type 7 for seven percent, or 8.25. Anything outside 0 to 100 is refused with Rate must be a percentage between 0 and 100.
4. Active — leave ticked.
5. Set as the store default rate — tick this on exactly one rate. See below.
6. Press Save rate.

Two rates cannot share a name. Saving a duplicate shows A tax rate with that name already exists.

The Tax Configuration card saves on its own. You do not need to press Save Changes at the bottom of the tab afterwards — that button is for the other cards.

The default rate

The rate marked Default applies to every product that has no rate of its own. That is most of your catalog in most stores, so set it to your ordinary combined sales-tax rate.

Only one rate should carry the Default badge. If you set a second one as default, the badge moves.

Edit or retire a rate

Each rate row has a pencil and a bin.

• Pencil — change the name, the percentage, or the two checkboxes.
• Untick Active — the rate keeps its Inactive badge and stays in the list, and stays attached to any product already assigned to it. Use this when a rate is historical and you do not want it offered on new products.
• Bin — deletes the rate outright. You are asked to confirm, and the message tells you what happens: Products assigned only this rate will fall back to the default. Deleting the default rate warns you separately.

There is no undo. If you are unsure, untick Active instead of deleting.

How a rate reaches a product

Open a product, then its Tax tab.

• Leave every box unticked — the product is taxed at your store default rate. This is what you want for nearly everything.
• Tick one or more rates — the product is taxed at those rates instead, added together. A product ticked for both a 4% state rate and a 3% city rate is taxed at 7%, and the receipt prints the two lines separately.
• Tax-exempt (never taxed) — no tax is charged on this product at all, whatever else is ticked. Ticking it clears the rate boxes.

The panel shows the product's current setting under the boxes, so you can check without saving.

If you have not created any rates yet, the tab says so and the product is taxed at the store default until you do.

What your cashier sees

The running total on the sale screen is worked out with your store's default rate across the whole basket. The tax that is actually charged, recorded and printed is worked out per product when the sale completes, using each product's own rates and exemptions.

For a store where everything is taxed at one rate the two are the same number. If you assign different rates to different products, or mark products tax-exempt, the tax shown while ringing up can differ from the tax on the completed sale and on the receipt. The receipt is the correct figure. If the difference matters to your cashiers, keep the register total in mind as an estimate and read the tax off the completed sale.