TaxCloud Addon

[Tapper]

I'm about to try this module but I have some questions.

1. We are required to charge tax on shipping. Does TaxCloud handle this itself, or just use the settings on the shipping config page?

2.

Note: This implementation currently does not support the coupon functionality within Zen Cart. You will need to make sure that the Discount Coupon module is disabled. (Modules > Order Total > Discount Coupon)

Does this mean that discount coupons will break TaxCloud, or that it will charge them tax based on the initial total instead of the final total? If it's going to overcharge them, I'd rather keep my coupons and refund them the difference.

3.

To assign a Tax Class to a product go to Admin->Catalog->Categories/Products->Dbl click on a category->click on Edit->Assign the appropriate TIC_ID to the product from the Tax Class dropdown

Do we have to manually assign a tax rate to each category or product?? I have over 300 categories.


Thanks! I'm really looking forward to trying this out

[Taxcloud]

Hello,

Here are some answers to your questions:

1. TaxCloud handles shipping taxes automatically.

2. What happens currently when you apply a coupon is that the order subtotal changes but the tax calculated by TaxCloud is not recalculated. So the customer's total would not add up correctly and they would be charged for an incorrect tax amount. Coupons don't cause a problem with the TaxCloud service itself. Refunding the customer the difference would work. Support for coupons should be available soon.

3. TaxCloud requires a tax rate to be set for each product (this is how Zen Cart works as well). This can be done manually through the admin interface or through a database update. How difficult this is depends on how many different types of products you have. If you only sell one category of product you can just set a default for the entire store. Please let me know if you would like some help with this.

Thanks for your interest!

I'm about to try this module but I have some questions.

1. We are required to charge tax on shipping. Does TaxCloud handle this itself, or just use the settings on the shipping config page?

2.


Does this mean that discount coupons will break TaxCloud, or that it will charge them tax based on the initial total instead of the final total? If it's going to overcharge them, I'd rather keep my coupons and refund them the difference.

3.


Do we have to manually assign a tax rate to each category or product?? I have over 300 categories.


Thanks! I'm really looking forward to trying this out

[Tapper]

OK. I have it installed in zc 1.3.9h. I verified my site in TaxCloud.net and got the API keys. When I click update on the TaxCloud settings page I get this error:

Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/.../admin/taxcloud.php:28) in /home/.../admin/includes/functions/general.php on line 21

We don't have a USPS_ID as far as I know. What is that? Is it required?

[Taxcloud]

Hello Tapper,

Usually if you see this type of error it means that there are extra spaces in the PHP file at the beginning or end of the file. There shouldn't be any spaces before the opening "<?php" statement or after the closing "?>" at the end of the file.

Please check taxcloud.php. It could also be a problem with includes/modules/TaxCloud/taxCloudConfig.php.

USPS_ID is required if you want to do address verifications, but leaving it out wouldn't cause this problem. We do address verifications to get the 9-digit zip code. This allows us to return the most accurate tax calculation.

Please let me know if this doesn't clear up your problems.

[Tapper]

OK, I tried it on a different website and it looks completely different. So there's something wrong with that other site.

So, we already had a tax rate and class set up. The class is plain old "Taxable Goods", and all of our products are set to that. The ID is 1. Does that all count as the TIC ID etc?

Lastly, it doesn't like something about our address. A big red box is across the top of the checkout screens that says:

Error Error encountered while verifying address 10 Stage Door Road 12590 Authorization failure. Perhaps username and/or password is incorrect.

If I just keep going, when I try to finalize the order the page goes away and I get the following:

Array ( [0] => A matching lookup could not be found for this authorization )

Our location is a bit odd: physically we're in one town, but our area is assigned to the PO in the next town. So our street address / zip probably don't match.

[Taxcloud]

Thanks for the reply. I'm not sure what you mean by the "other site", so I won't go into that.

You will have to either create a new Tax Class, or edit your existing Tax Class to include the TIC ID. Editing your existing Tax Class would probably be easier.

The "Tax Class Title" needs to be set to the TIC ID. The "Description" can be set to whatever you like. A list of TIC IDs can be found at TaxCloud.net/tic.

It looks like the code is expecting a valid USPS ID. You can get your own ID for free. Let me know if you need help with that. How to do that is also detailed in the developer guide.

Let me know if this doesn't clear up your problems.

[akharrod]

I installed this (1.5) tonight per the instructions, but when I log back into the admin secant there isn't a tax cloud section under the locations / taxes tab. I reuploaded all ( and yes I uploaded the admin folder contents to the renamed admin folder). Does anyone have any tips?


this should be easy

[SPembleton]

It worked fine for me.

Does anything show up under the Modules/orders total screen? You should see "Discount Coupon" and "Exemption Certificates" listed with aqn entry in the next colomn startting with ot_TaxCloud

You may want to check to ensure that the files truly were loaded. If somehow a file was not properly loaded the first time, and the the file was in read-only mode, it may not have been re-written the second time.

If that doesn't work, I would back up your site, VERY CAREFULLY remove the files that were installed and do a fresh install.

Any other ideas out there?

[SPembleton]

It worked fine for me.

Does anything show up under the Modules/orders total screen? You should see "Discount Coupon" and "Exemption Certificates" listed with aqn entry in the next colomn startting with ot_TaxCloud

You may want to check to ensure that the files truly were loaded. If somehow a file was not properly loaded the first time, and the the file was in read-only mode, it may not have been re-written the second time.

If that doesn't work, I would back up your site, VERY CAREFULLY remove the files that were installed and do a fresh install.

Any other ideas out there?

One other idea. (This one had me baffeled for a while) If you are on a linux server, directory names are case-sensitive. Make sure you didn't use the wrong name for your renamed admin folder by using the wrong case.

[SPembleton]

I am just testing out Tax Cloud. Using a test site for ZC 1.5, I tried the tax exemption option. After adding the info I selected "save" exemption and went to a white screen that just said "valid", and then stopped. When I hit the back button to my cart and refreshed, the tax was still there.