Spark Pay online stores integrate with the following third party services to provide calculated accurate tax rates.
These settings can be changed under Tools > Apps & Add-Ons.
Standard Tax:
This is a basic rate table manually configured in the Settings > Payments & Tax > Tax Rates : section of the admin console and uses the Tax Regions option just below it to typically define different States and tax rates for that state.
Advanced Tax:
This is a rate table that Spark Pay online stores manages and updates monthly with the latest tax data from a 3rd party provider. This information is accurate down to the zipcode / city level and includes all municipal, county and state tax rates. It tries to match based on Zip / City and if it cannot match on the city it gets the highest rate for the zipcode. The same rate is applied to all taxable items and taxable shipping on an order, regardless of product type. This service is available for an additional fee, please contact your Account Manager for more information.
Avalara:
Avalara is a 3rd party tax provider that offers many additional benefits above our other tax methods. Avalara will provide real-time tax calculations for the shopping cart and order entry and using the Tax Code field on the product, Avalara can provide accurate tax rates for specific product types for regions that have very complex rules.
Avalara provides many advanced tax reporting features and will also handle paying your company's sales and use taxes to the appropriate agencies automatically, drastically reducing tax payment overhead. Contact your Spark Pay online store account manager or Avalara for more information.
The URL will need to be placed into the URL Field
https://avatax.avalara.net
Upon closing an order (via setting an order to an order status that is flagged as "closed" in the Order Statuses editor), Spark Pay online stores will notify Avalara to commit the tax amount for the order to their database, and this can be disabled on the setup under Tools > Apps & Add-Ons > Avalara
