Sage 100

I have a customer who is just starting to do multi-state sales tax and is wondering how others manage tax exemptions. One of their states is California which would seem like you need to pull in all the tax codes for the various regions and if the customer in California is exempt then you add an exemption number to each state tax code --- presumably via VI. Am I missing something or is this a big manual process to manage when you have a state as large as California or New York which may have multiple taxing jurisdictions? I've recommended Avalara about a dozen times and the owner is against it. How have you see this managed when people don't use Avalara and are selling taxable items into larger states?

I guess the answer to this is you use NONTAX and nothing to that customer gets taxed and you hope that you never ship anything to a state where they may be subject to sales tax.

Importing into the sales tax and associated files related to the exemption is challenging. You have to import to the Customer file and Ship to associated with that customer.. In California each county can have there own tax on top of the State tax. Not for the timid .

Not only County, but City and Special District. We maintain California tax tables by updating Schedules/Codes with every change. Provided the client uses our Tax Schedules/Codes, we can copy ours to replace theirs. For Exemptions, it is as @JimWoodhead says, or manual entry. Using NONTAX may make it more difficult for sales/use tax return preparation because there are separate lines for non-taxable vs tax-exempt sales.

I went to US Open in July courtesy of Avalara. During a short presentation, they said tax exemption certificate wizard was being built into Sage 100, though wouldn't/couldn't disclose design or release date. They do offer certificate management services via their portal.

If you have AvaCerts, even if you have an exemption number in Sage, unless you have something in Certs for that customer, it will still calculate taxes. Just an FYI.

Thanks - great info. Sounds as if we are on the right track. I've told the customer that they really should be on Avalara unless they're willing to assume the risk of under-reporting or mis-reporting. Their last audit was about $30k and I think they figure it's cheaper to pay the audit when/if challenged than to pay Avalara. This customer is thinking that they will essentially flag their order entry clerks when there is a tax exempt status and then have the order entry make the tax changes. I think that's crazy and error prone.