The customer showed me how they use it for certain customers. She entered it on a line (not sure why they don't use the freight field on the Totals tab) and then went to Totals and the only thing there was sales tax. I tried a different item, yep, that worked. Hmm, what if I change the tax schedule? Then it hit me - in the Avalara setups, you specify what will be used for freight. I tried changing it there (to FRGHT) but that didn't help. This customer just went live on Monday with Avalara, BTW.
She had originally called me because she had a sales journal that updated out of balance. That was due to a credit memo (am I the only one who has customers with issues with credit memos updating out of balance????). Entered a one-sided entry to correct that then checked the trial balance - still out of balance. She said she thought she saw something when she was posting ""but you know we just click through things and don't really look at anything."" So I checked a couple of their journals and they were out of balance. Hmm, couldn't find it easily but then created a Crystal report to look at the extended amount vs. the invoice total and sure enough, there were three invoices with the FREIGHT item that updated out of balance. Sales tax WAS charged on them however. If you look at the tax detail the freight charge is listed under Taxable Freight and tax is charged but it doesn't appear on the Totals tab.
One of those fun things to figure out. TG for Crystal!!!