TaxCloud Error: "a matching lookup could not be found"

[Feznizzle]

Hi,

I manage a site that has recently encountered major checkout problems. The site is a ZC154 with the latest TaxCloud mod.

After placing items in a cart, customers attempt to checkout... only to receive an error message. These customers will often repeat the checkout, believing the order did not take. Today, one lady placed the same order 3x's. When these orders go thru, we do not receive the normal order notice via email that ZC sends, nor do customers receive their notice.

We were able to replicate the problem, arriving at the error page which displaced this message:
Array ( [0] => A matching lookup could not be found for this authorization (CartID : 76025) )

Upon realizing this was a TaxCloud problem, we checked and noticed that tax collections have not been occurring correctly for a while.

Does anyone know of a solution?

Thanks!

[Feznizzle]

I just had a conversation with support. Apparently TaxCloud requires 2-Letter state codes. I configured the site to force ZC to use down menus for selecting states.

If that does not work, I will come back and update this thread with whatever solution I discover that does indeed work.

[Feznizzle]

Nope, that did NOT help one bit. Site went completely haywire, several customers tried placing orders and ended up submitting multiple times. Completely FUBAR!

I went into admin and disabled TaxCloud. Presto, everything fixed. Client will take orders––paying sales taxes out their own pocket––until I implement a new system. Unfortunately they are based in California, which means they have a zillion different applicable rates they will have to charge. And of course that means I cannot simply use the built in tax mod.

*sigh*

Looks like I will be pointing them toward a paid mod from a company called Avalara. Can anybody suggest some other options?

[DrByte]

What are the folks at TaxCloud saying?

If TaxCloud is transmitting the state incorrectly, that's easily fixed in their mod.


Avalara's the only other "service" I know of.

I'd recommend using the built-in capability to at least collect a blanket amount rather than collecting nothing at all.

[Feznizzle]

Getting someone on the phone over at TaxCloud took quite a bit of creative effort. Once on the phone, the guy was quite friendly and knowledgeable. He went back through an error log he had on his end for my client (a log that was quite extensive) and, by the end, seemed convinced that all I had to do was flip the ZC switch to force customers to choose states from a drop down menu.

Of course, that was an epic fail. Within an hour or so of forcing the drop down, several duplicate orders came in. After that, my client went thru to test and his order failed as well.

Assuming I could fix their mod for them, I still don't feel safe about that. When a paypal transaction fails, a notice appears in the log folder providing clues to the problem. When a Taxcloud error occurs, we receive no notice. None whatsoever. This guy went thru piles of error logs on the phone with me, going back years. Their ZC mod does not kick off a warning to us and, worse, they don't bother to let us know we have a problem... even though they can clearly see it on their end.

Had his fix actually worked, I probably would have advised my client to switch. Collecting sales tax is a very minor, but extremely important, part of their operation. Screwing that up can lead to audits and worse. Better to be safe than sorry.

Btw, whatever is failing in the ZC Taxcloud mod is failing *big* time. It absolutely must be something on their end, not ZC. If the problem has existed for a long time (this may be the case), something they've done recently has made it extremely pronounced, causing major disruption for my client's cart. I have not pushed any major updates for months, and all they do is front end stuff (adding products, etc).

My clients have already canceled their taxcloud and signed up for Avalara.

Thanks, DrByte. If I can't get that mod live today (I haven't looked at it yet), I'll do as you recommend and set them up to collect the state base amount. Then they'll just have to cover the difference locally out of their own pocket.

If anybody else finds themselves in this boat, be careful what you do. You may be tempted to choose the highest sales tax rate so that you don't end up loosing money on taxes. However, it's extremely illegal to collect a higher tax rate than is actually owed.

If Avalara doesn't work out, I'll follow up on this thread.

[infinigrove]

I see this thread is a year old but I was having the same problem with the latest version of the TaxCloud module with ZC v1.5.5f

It was giving me "Error encountered looking up tax amount The Ship To State (Ne) is not valid" when trying to do New York (NY) state or any other state where the 2-Letter state code was not the first 2 characters of the state name.

What I did to resolve this issue is first modify includes/classes/order.php to lookup the zone_code in the $shipping_address_query around line 270 by changing:

$shipping_address_query = "select ab.entry_firstname, ab.entry_lastname, ab.entry_company,
                                    ab.entry_street_address, ab.entry_suburb, ab.entry_postcode,
                                    ab.entry_city, ab.entry_zone_id, z.zone_name, ab.entry_country_id,
                                    c.countries_id, c.countries_name, c.countries_iso_code_2,

to

$shipping_address_query = "select ab.entry_firstname, ab.entry_lastname, ab.entry_company,
                                    ab.entry_street_address, ab.entry_suburb, ab.entry_postcode,
                                    ab.entry_city, ab.entry_zone_id, z.zone_name, z.zone_code, ab.entry_country_id,
                                    c.countries_id, c.countries_name, c.countries_iso_code_2,

Then I added a state_code to the delivery array that contains the zone_code around line 424. So that this:

$this->delivery = array('firstname' => $shipping_address->fields['entry_firstname'],
                            'lastname' => $shipping_address->fields['entry_lastname'],
                            'company' => $shipping_address->fields['entry_company'],
                            'street_address' => $shipping_address->fields['entry_street_address'],
                            'suburb' => $shipping_address->fields['entry_suburb'],
                            'city' => $shipping_address->fields['entry_city'],
                            'postcode' => $shipping_address->fields['entry_postcode'],

Now looks like:

$this->delivery = array('firstname' => $shipping_address->fields['entry_firstname'],
                            'lastname' => $shipping_address->fields['entry_lastname'],
                            'company' => $shipping_address->fields['entry_company'],
                            'street_address' => $shipping_address->fields['entry_street_address'],
                            'suburb' => $shipping_address->fields['entry_suburb'],
                            'city' => $shipping_address->fields['entry_city'],
                            'postcode' => $shipping_address->fields['entry_postcode'],
                            'state_code' => $shipping_address->fields['zone_code'],

Then I modified the includes/modules/TaxCloud/func.taxcloud.php to use the state_code instead to the state on line 98 by replacing:

$destination->setState($delivery['state']); // Two character state appreviation

with

$destination->setState($delivery['state_code']); // Two character state appreviation

Hope this helps.

[TaxCloudDev]

Please see Important Advisory Number 1 in our developer guide for looking up sales tax rates.