Sales Tax Groups - FAQs

For more information on Sales Tax Groups, visit our Overview of Sales Tax Groups in ServiceTrade.

What is a sales tax group? 

In ServiceTrade, Sales Tax Groups are defined by the zip codes (including US ZIP, like 27703, and US Zip+4, like 27703-1562) for a specific location or geographic region that has the same combined tax rate when all sales tax jurisdictions for that location are combined together. 

How can I set up my sales tax groups? 

For information on setting up your sales tax groups, read our article on Creating, Editing, and Removing Sales Tax Groups.

How can I tell who made changes to my sales tax groups?

There is a history button on the top right of the 'Create Sales Tax Group' page. This button will show you what the sales tax group changed from, what it changed to, and who did it. It will also tell you how the count changed, but not which groups changed.

What if one zip code crosses multiple sales tax jurisdictions?

Sales Tax Groups can handle US ZIP+4 (27703-1234) which will allow you to customize your sales tax groups at the address level to handle these types of situations.

For Example: If zip code 27703 is partially in County A and partially in County B, you should create two sales tax groups. See the screenshots below for examples.

County A Example

County B Example

Can I assign a Sales Tax Group based on a Location assignment versus Zip Code?

When creating or editing a Location, you now have the ability to assign a Sales Tax Group based on location assignment rather than Zip Code. The selected Sales Tax Group will be used for all Invoices and Quotes created for this location.

This is useful for Jurisdictions in states such as Washington and Louisiana whose tax rates are not always determined by Zip Code alone.

If the Location is set to Taxable, Sales Tax Groups is enabled, and you have created Sales Tax Groups, a new field will appear called Location Tax Group. Here you can select a Sales Tax Group that you added. You can only select Sales Tax Groups that exist in the same state as the Location.

The Location Tax Group is a combination of Tax Group Code and Tax Group Name (taken from the Sales Tax Groups page in ServiceTrade).

Note: The selected Sales Tax Group will override the Location's Zip Code Sales Tax Group assignment. 

I live in an origin-based sales tax state; how do I create sales tax groups?

Read more about how to do this in our article on Bulk Importing for Origin-Based Sales Tax States.

How often do I need to update my sales tax rates?

You should update your sales tax rates as often as required by the jurisdictions in which you do business.  Contact the tax authorities in those jurisdictions for more information about sales tax rate changes.

Do you integrate with third-party companies like Avalara? 

We have a paid custom integration that can be configured for your company. Please reach out to support or your account manager for additional details.

What sales tax group import templates do you support? 

We have our ServiceTrade provided template and the template from https://www.avalara.com/taxrates/en/state-rates.html. The ServiceTrade-provided template is included as a csv file attachment at the end of this article. 

Can I import sales tax groups from my accounting system? 

Yes. If your accounting system allows you to export sales tax groups, you can edit the data in Excel to fit into our standard import template and import them that way. 

• tax-group-postal-codes-template.csv57 Bytes