Charging tax where the work is done (tax locations)

Sales tax generally follows the place where the work is done or delivered, not where your office is. That's easy when every job happens in one state. It gets awkward the moment you cross a line.

Take a glass shop in Nashua, New Hampshire. New Hampshire has no general sales tax, so the shop's own invoices carry none. Massachusetts is ten minutes south, and its sales tax is 6.25%. When the shop's mobile tech replaces a windshield in a customer's driveway in Lowell, MA, that job is generally taxable in Massachusetts. Without tax locations, Suprata would charge the shop's standard tax (nothing) on that invoice, just as it does on every other.

Tax locations fix that. You describe a place (a country, a state, optionally some ZIP codes) and how each of your taxes is charged there. Every invoice then works out where its work was done and uses that place's rules. Anything that doesn't match a tax location keeps your standard tax, exactly as it works today.

Suprata doesn't look up tax rates. You type the rate, and you keep it current when a state changes it. Whether you're required to collect tax in another state at all is a question for your accountant or the state's revenue department. Confirm both before you start charging.

When you'd use this

Mobile or on-site work across a state line. Glass, HVAC, plumbing, mobile detailing or lawn care near a border.
Several shops in different states. A company with shops in New Hampshire and Massachusetts, usually alongside business units.
A city or county with its own rate. New York City's combined rate is 8.875%, higher than most of the rest of New York State.
Provinces or regions where the same idea applies.

If all your work happens in one place at one rate, skip this. Your standard tax setup already does the job.

How it fits together

Three pieces:

Your standard tax. These are your tax categories and tax tables, covered in How tax categories work. It's used for everything no tax location matches.
Tax locations. Each one is a place plus a rule for each of your taxes there. They live under Financial Settings → Tax Locations, next to Tax Categories and Tax Tables.
The place of each invoice. Suprata works this out automatically, or you choose it on the invoice.

Tax locations are not tied to business units. A one-location company with a mobile van can use them just as well as a chain.

How Suprata decides where the work was done

For each invoice, Suprata checks these in order and stops at the first that gives an address:

A choice made on the invoice. If someone picked a location (or "Standard rates") on the invoice, that wins.
On-site jobs use the job site. For a job marked On-Site, it's the job's service location. If there isn't one, it's the customer's address.
Everything else uses your location. First comes the business unit's chosen tax location (Sales tax for work done at this location, on Business Units → Documents). If that's left on Not set: its own address, then the company's, Suprata uses the unit's own address, if it prints its own details, and then your company address.

That address is matched to your tax locations, and the most specific match wins. A location with ZIP codes beats a state-wide one, which beats a country-wide one. Priority breaks a tie between two locations that cover the same address. If nothing matches, the invoice gets your standard tax.

On-site vs. in-store is what decides job site vs. shop. On the new job form, attaching a service location is what makes a job on-site. The Open Jobs list shows each job as On-Site or In-Store. A mobile job booked without a service location is treated as shop work and taxed at the shop.

Setting up a tax location, step by step

Continue with the Nashua shop. Open Tax Locations and click New tax location.

1. Name and place

Name: Massachusetts. This is what shows on invoices and reports.
Country: US.
State / province: MA. You can type "Massachusetts", "Mass." or "ma"; they're all understood.
Only these ZIP codes (optional): leave this blank for the whole state.

2. How each of your taxes is charged here

The table lists each of your tax categories, Your standard rate, and a choice In this location:

Standard rate keeps the category exactly as it's set up at home, including any thresholds or tiers.
Charge applies a percentage (or a flat amount) you type. It replaces the category's home brackets with one rate on every price.
Not taxed here charges nothing for that category in this location.

Rates accept up to four decimals, so 8.875% works.

For the Nashua shop, with categories "Taxable Goods" and "Labor (Exempt)", set:

Taxable Goods: Charge 6.25%.
Labor (Exempt): Not taxed here, or whatever your accountant tells you applies to labor in Massachusetts.
Exempt (used for tax-exempt customers): Not taxed here. Never Charge. See the common mistakes below.

3. Items with no tax category

Plenty of New Hampshire businesses never gave their items a tax category, because there was nothing to tax. For them, the category table above doesn't help, since their items aren't in a category.

That's what Items with no tax category is for. Type 6.25 and every uncategorised item on a Massachusetts job is charged 6.25%. Leave it blank and those items stay untaxed there, as they are everywhere else.

4. Priority, then save

Leave Priority at 0 unless two of your locations cover the same address; it only matters then. Save.

5. Check an address

The Check an address box at the bottom of the page is how you confirm the setup. Type MA and 01852 (Lowell) and it should answer "Taxed as Massachusetts." Type NH and 03060 and it should answer "No tax location matches: your standard tax rules apply." Try the addresses you actually work at before you trust it with a real invoice.

ZIP-limited locations

Use Only these ZIP codes when a rate applies to part of a state. The field takes the starting digits of ZIP codes, separated by commas.

Example: a New York location for the state, plus a second location called "New York City (Manhattan)" with state NY and ZIP codes 100, 101, 102 at 8.875%. A Manhattan address matches both. The ZIP one is more specific, so it wins. A Buffalo address matches only the state-wide one.

Two things to know:

ZIP codes don't follow city limits. A prefix can cover towns outside the city, or miss parts of it. Check the ZIPs you actually serve.
An address with no ZIP can't match a ZIP-limited location, so it falls back to the state-wide one (or your standard tax).

On the invoice

Once you have at least one tax location, unlocked invoices show a line such as Sales tax: Massachusetts (job site), with a picker:

Choose automatically: the rules above (the default).
Standard rates: ignore tax locations for this invoice.
A specific location: force it.

Use the picker for genuine exceptions, such as a job booked as on-site that the customer ended up driving into the shop. Don't use it to fix a setup mistake; fix the job's service location or the tax location instead.

Tax lines on the invoice are labelled with the place, for example Sales Tax (Massachusetts), so anyone reading the invoice can tell which state's tax it is.

Locked invoices keep their tax

A locked invoice keeps the tax location and rates it was locked with. If Massachusetts changes its rate next year and you update the location, locked invoices don't move, and their totals stay exactly as billed. (Previously, a rate change after locking could change a locked invoice's total. That no longer happens.) Unlocked invoices pick up the new rate the next time they're opened.

The tax report by location

The Tax report shows each tax per location as its own column. Your home tax, "Sales Tax (Massachusetts)" and "Sales Tax (New York City (Manhattan))" each get their own column. That's the point: tax collected for Massachusetts is owed to Massachusetts. File each column with its own state. See Tax reports.

The "not adding any tax" warning

Some older setups created a tax whose only rate applied to items priced $0.00 or less. On paper the tax had a rate; in practice it charged nothing on any real sale. If your account has one, Tax Locations shows a yellow warning:

Sales Tax is not adding any tax. Its only rate applies to items priced $0.00 or less, so every real sale is charged nothing.

The button beside it, Apply Sales Tax to every price, fixes the rate so it applies to every price. It asks you to confirm, because unlocked invoices that include that tax will show tax the next time they're opened.

Before you press it, think about who that affects. If you've been invoicing without tax for months, open unlocked invoices will gain tax when a customer or staff member next opens them. Locked invoices don't change. Most people should press it, then work through their open unlocked invoices, or warn the customers involved, the same day. Accounts set up recently don't have this problem.

Setting it up from the onboarding wizard

New accounts may see an optional step called Work in other states?, right after the sales tax step. It has up to three rows of State and Rate %, and a tick box: Also charge it on items that have no tax category (tick this if you do not charge tax at home). That's the fast way to set up the Nashua example: MA, 6.25, box ticked.

Each row becomes a state-wide tax location. Your rate is applied only to the tax categories that charge tax at home. A category with no rate, such as Exempt or untaxed labor, gets no rule, so it stays untaxed in that state too.

If you charge no tax at home, none of your categories has a rate, so the step taxes nothing through them. The tick box is what covers uncategorised items. If your items do have tax categories, open the location afterwards and set those categories to Charge. You can add or change locations any time under Tax Locations.

Common mistakes

Items with no tax category, and nothing in "Items with no tax category". The location matches, but there's nothing for it to tax, so Massachusetts jobs still come out at $0.00. Either give your items categories, or fill in the uncategorised rate.
Setting your Exempt category to Charge. Tax-exempt customers are usually handled with an Exempt category that has no rate. If you set a location to Charge for that category, your exempt customers get taxed on out-of-state jobs. Leave it on Not taxed here or Standard rate; both keep it at zero. (The onboarding step already leaves categories with no home rate alone.)
A no-tax-at-home shop whose items have categories. If your categories carry no rate at home, a location only taxes them when you set them to Charge. Ticking the onboarding box covers uncategorised items only.
Booking mobile jobs as in-store. A job with no service location is taxed at the shop. If your mobile techs' jobs are coming out with New Hampshire (no) tax, the jobs are missing their service locations.
Addresses with no state. A job site or customer address with the state blank can't be matched. The invoice falls back to your shop's location. Keep states filled in on service locations.
Writing ZIP codes as ranges or patterns. State names are forgiving: "Massachusetts", "Mass." and "MA" all work. ZIP codes aren't. The field wants the leading digits, like 021. A range such as 02100-02199, a pattern such as 021xx, or a town name matches nothing.
Using Charge when you meant Standard rate. Charge replaces a category's home thresholds and tiers with one flat rate. If you want the category to behave exactly as it does at home, choose Standard rate.
Forgetting that rates change. Suprata won't notice when a state raises its rate. Put a yearly reminder on your calendar to check each location's rate against the state's website.