TaxCloud Addon

@twitchtoo did you create a second TaxCloud account for testing or have you figured out how to put their system into test mode? I am getting collisions between orders on the live site and orders on my local test cart.

The TaxCloud team is looking into handling refunds, which their current integration does not do. Hopefully they will have an update for Zen Cart soon.

TaxCloud Merchant Terms of Service have changed as of January 2021. They no longer offer to provide the service entirely free of charge.

I need to update to v1.5.7d. Has anyone had success using the current TaxCloud plugin version in any of the 1.57 versions?

don't bother. go with another tax service. taxcloud is not really free and the way they have it set up, even if you are not supposed to pay taxes in certain states because you do not reach the threshold, they will still subscribe to those states for you and you will then be forced to pay sales tax. this is only if you want them to auto pay for you, they then subscribe you to the entire dealio. it comes out to be very expensive for their service esp if they set you up for states you do not reach the threshold for and then have to collect and pay sales tax.

plus their customer support is the worst. you will fight tooth and nail to get them to fix their mistakes and they take forever to reply. we had to do a total of 3 charge backs, once for a glitch in their system that charged us $50 for no reason, 2 because they kept charging us after we cancelled and got a cancellation confirmation from them. they kept making promises they would refund us on the next billing cycle (why do we have to wait for their next billing cycle? never heard of that).

RUN FROM THIS SERVICE

I've been with them for a while. I can't disagree with anything you are saying. Had had my issues with them in the past. Stopped calling a couple years ago.

I'm not aware of any other tax service option/plugin that works with zen cart for the U.S.

I can live with the issues if I have to.

I have a couple of zen cart stores, but the one with TaxCloud is 1.55f.

Was hoping to go into the 1.57 family if I know I can get TaxCloud to work.

I use a very limited amount of plugins.

Most likely because of this one issue and how "plugins" are done here and with the core files needing to be edited, we most likely are moving to wordpress since everything is modular in design. no wp core edits, you add a plugin and the user base and plugins are huge! we are doing our research right now.

fravac:

I can live with the issues if I have to.

The issue is since they are part of the "streamline" they will subscribe you to all the states that are part of that group, so even if you don't reach the threshold of some of those states, you will have to collect sales tax and pay it to those states. not sure why they set it up that way but it's dumb and you end up with more headache down the road, paying more plus the issue of order cancellations, etc. their plugin does not work right for that so you'll end up doing manual paperwork and they no longer support their own plugin.

it's not worth it. zencart needs a better way of doing plugins with more plugin authors that don't require core edits. this isn't 2001. i think wordpress is the way to go. just about all the competitors in my field have move to a wordpress type modular ecommerce site.

I'm familiar with wordpress and have woocommerce running in a sandox.

Specific to ecommerce, I like zen cart a lot. Been using it since 2005.

I just need TaxCloud to work for 1.57 so I can upgrade.

i like zc too, been using osc since 2001 and migrated to zc back in 2004 but it's too much of a pain to keep update with the core edits. i'm here to sell and make money, not spend most of my time worrying about zc crashing or being outdated because the newer version of php or mysql won't work with it and risking a breach.

zc, imo, isn't up with the times, again my opinion

If your tax are not sophisticated, you can probably check Local Sales Tax Mod.

https://www.zen-cart.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=422&styleid=4

The latest mod is compatible with the latest 1.57 or 1.57d

thx for the feedback.

I need to use a tax software/api plugin.

Got no choice.

I would be manually submitting taxes to over 25 states every month/quarter if I did it any other way.

travbacon:

i like zc too, been using osc since 2001 and migrated to zc back in 2004 but it's too much of a pain to keep update with the core edits. i'm here to sell and make money, not spend most of my time worrying about zc crashing or being outdated because the newer version of php or mysql won't work with it and risking a breach.

zc, imo, isn't up with the times, again my opinionPlease accept this as a friendly poke.

I bet you don't check your oil often, either.

I was there at OSC with you and came here in 2004 as well.

Looking at the Latest Plugins/Addons list, I see just around a handful that modify core files. I would say that there has been a major shift to mods that spare core files. The addition of Plugin Manager to 1.5.7 was a leap in the install/update/delete in one place design. It will probably get better in 1.5.8.

One of our hosting customers has over fifteen major mods with none overwriting core files. There may be one or two that required merging a mod' defines into an existing file. It's not rocket science and there are free software solutions for merging.

ZC crashing due to a newer version of PHP/MySQL is almost always the host upgrading PHP/MyySQL without telling their client. If it isn't the fault of the host, the only other cause is the shop owner selecting the wrong version in their cpanel. (that's why many folks drop that feature in their customers' cPanels).

How is that ZCs fault? Mosts hosts will keep an old PHP a little past its EOL so, if you are using 1.5.5 or better, your host should be able to accomodate you.

Security? Of the box, both WP are quite secure. Modifying Zen Cart with any mod from the Plugins section is probably 99% secure. The mods are checked before being listed. You can also find forum members that have many commercial mods. It's only fair that major progamming efforts be rewarded.

I'm not sure that WP does such a thing but, I do know that they had 13.7 Million attacks from 16,000 IPs on December 9th, 2021. The cause? 4 plugins and a couple of templates with vulnerabilities with 1.6 million sites using at least one or more of them as their plugin(s).

I look at evey upgrade of ZC and any mod that makes things work better as an opportunity to better serve my customer in a secure environment.

Carlwhat just stepped up and gave us a solution to the changes in Square processsing and lat9 made sure that One Page Checkout works the the new chagges as well.

One a forum member - one a developer. All part of the team helping Zen Cart stay as current and secure as possible.

That's why, as a ZC certified host, we have WP turned off on our servers.

dbltoe:

....Carlwhat just stepped up and gave us a solution to the changes in Square processsing and lat9 made sure that One Page Checkout works the the new chagges as well.

One a forum member - one a developer....

i would suggest to you that this last statement is a bit mis-leading.

i would opine the we are BOTH forum members; and that we are BOTH developers.

Of course, you are correct. I was trying to point out that, for whatever reason, there are different levels of involvement but all can be contirbutors to Zen Cart.

Although involved in the development of certain aspects of Zen Cart, I do not possess the level of being able to committ a pull request on GitHub.

So, if someone wants ZC to be better.... Step Up. You can do it from any level.

What are zen cart store owners using to process taxes in the U.S.?

I'm fairly high volume/low margin, so I need to push hard to make money.

Is there another plugin aside from Tax Cloud? I've seen Tax Jar mentioned in the past.

I would prefer to stay with Zen Cart, and I kinda hate the WP/Woocommerce db schema.

My carts don't really depend on too many plugins (stamps, sales tax plugin, sales report, some kind of captcha)

Outside of the native Paypal payment module, I don't believe anything I use would impact a 3rd party Tax plugin

A TaxJar plugin has been submitted for moderator approval.