Avalara Attribute Support

Avalara Attribute Support

Release Date: 4/28/23
Updated: 4/25/25
Version: 8.6 and Above

For Elliott to work with the Avalara Sales Tax Interface, there are additional data to be stored on the Elliott side.  Our implementation chooses to store these data in the following attributes to support the Avalara Integration. For those attributes created by Elliott automatically, you should not change or delete them.  Before we can store Avalara data in attributes, we must have the corresponding attribute codes created first.  You need to create these attribute codes by running System File Setup-> Maintenance-> Attribute File-> Create-> Avalara Attributes.

The following is a list of attributes for Avalara integration. 

_AVATAXSNAPSHOT


_AVATAXSNAPSHOT will be created for the order when a communication to Avalara had taken place. The snapshot of the order is saved in the attribute for comparison to prevent excessive calling Avalara web services.  
  • Reference 1 – Address line 1
  • Reference 2 – Address line 2
  • Reference 3 – City
  • Reference 4 – State
  • Reference 5 - Zip Code
  • Amount 1 – Order Amt
  • Amount 2 – Misc. Charges
  • Amount 3 – Freight charges
  • Check Box 1 – Taxable?
  • Check Box 2 – Used TaxCd ON030000?
The following are timing when this can happen when:

Address validation occurs – The order amount, misc. charges, and freight charges in the attribute will be set to zero.
  • If validation is unsuccessful, the attribute for the order will not be created and if it exists only the address will be updated.
  • If validation is successful but there are no suggested changes, the attribute will be created with the address as entered.
  • If validation is successful and the user accepts the changes, the attribute will be created with the accepted address.
  • If validation is successful and the user rejects the changes, the attribute will be created with the original address.
Tax calculation occurs during billing when the payment window is presented or when the picking ticket is printed –
  • If the attribute exists and all of the fields match, taxes are not recalculated for a “SalesOrder” type transaction.
  • If the attribute exists and any of the fields don’t match, taxes are recalculated for a “Sales Order” type transaction.
  • If the attribute does not exist, taxes are calculated for a “Sales Order” type transaction. The attribute will be created and will store the order amount, misc. charges, and freight charges .

_AVATAXFINAL

  • Reference 1 – Address line 1
  • Reference 2 – Address line 2
  • Reference 3 – City
  • Reference 4 – State
  • Reference 5 - Zip Code
  • Amount 1 – Order Amt
  • Amount 2 – Misc Charges
  • Amount 3 – Freight charges
  • Check Box 1 – Taxable?
  • Check Box 2 – Used TaxCd ON030000?  
AVATAXFINAL will be created for the order when invoices are printed (“SalesInvoice” transaction type). 

Final Tax calculation occurs during invoice printing. The attribute is created indicating the information that was used when calculating taxes. If everything goes as expected, this attribute should contain same data as in _AVATAXSNAPSHOT attribute. The Elliott design will allow invoice printing even if there's no internet connection.  The existence of this attribute indicates there was a successful communication to Avalara during invoice printing which is the final step before committing to Avalara. Hence this attribute will influence Elliott's later on processing.  To ensure the integrity between this attribute and order status, if an invoice is voided, this attribute is deleted so taxes will be recalculated when the invoice is printed again. If a duplicate invoice is printed and this attribute exist, taxes will not be calculated again.

_AVATAXDS

  1. Reference 1 - Order No
  2. Reference 2 - Invoice No
  3. Amount 1 - Elliott Tax Amt
  4. Amount 2 - Avalara Tax Amt
  5. Amount 3 - Pct Difference
AVATAXDS will be created if there is a discrepancy between the amount of tax calculated by Elliott versus the amount of tax calculated by Avalara. One situation that will cause the creation of this attribute is when the Elliott side is not taxable, but there's no tax exempt certificate on file with Avalara, this will cause a discrepancy.  Elliott will override the Avalara side by sending the tax code ON03000 for all items to force the tax of the order to be zero on the Avalara side. An AVATAXDS event will be triggered and this attribute will also be created to store the amount of tax that both Elliott and Avalara calculated.

_USECODE

  • Reference 1 – Use code

Use codes are used to determine why a customer is exempt from taxes. Use Codes can be assigned at the customer type, customer, ship-to and order levels. When determining the use code for an order, a hierarchy will be applied. If the order contains a ship-to and a use code has been assigned to the ship-to, the use code will be assigned to the order. If no ship-to use code has been assigned or the user is not using a ship-to, the application will check for a customer use code. If the use code does not exist, the application will check for a customer type use code. If the use code has not been defined the Avalara Global Setup Default, Cust Exempt Use Code will be used as the default. The use code can manually be defined at the order header level.

_GOODSERVICES

  • Reference 1 – Tax Code (Goods and Services Code)
Avalara's Tax codes are used to determine what tax category an item belongs to for taxing purposes. Tax codes can be assigned at the product category, user-defined code and item levels. When creating an order, a hierarchy will be applied. If no tax code exists for the item, the application will check for a user-defined code tax code. If the tax code does not exist, the application will check for product category tax code. If the tax code has not been defined, the Avalara Global Setup Default Item Tax Code will be used as the default.

_TAXBREAKDOWN00 (through 04)

  • Reference 1 – jurisCode
  • Reference 2 – jurisType (00=Country, 01=State, 02 = County, 03 = City, 04 = Special)
  • Reference 3 – jurisName
  • Reference 4 – taxType
  • Amount 1 – taxableAmount
  • Amount 2 – taxCalcuated
  • Amount 3 - rate
Used to record the Tax Breakdown at the Order Header and the Order Line Item file levels. When added to the Order Header file, it is a total per jurisdiction code. This is attached to the order when taxes are calculated with the order number as the document number of reference. When invoices are printed, tax will be recalculated and will update the attributes attached to the Order Header and Order Line Item tables using the order number. Once the invoice is posted, they will then be keyed using the invoice number.

_TAXBREAKDOWN09 (used for retail delivery fee)

  • Reference 1 – jurisCode
  • Reference 2 – jurisType (00=Country, 01=State, 02 = County, 03 = City, 04 = Special)
  • Reference 3 – jurisName
  • Reference 4 – taxType
  • Amount 1 – taxableAmount
  • Amount 2 – taxCalcuated
  • Amount 3 - rate
If Avalara calculates a secondary miscellaneous charge, such as the .27 charge when shipping to Colorado or the .50 charge when shipping to Minnesota, this amount will be stored in this attribute. For more details of Colorado delivery fee, please see KB article: https://support.netcellent.com/portal/en/kb/articles/feature-colorado-sales-tax-retail-delivery-fee-rdf-support. For more details on the Minnesota delivery fee, please see KB article: https://support.netcellent.com/portal/en/kb/articles/feature-minnesota-sales-tax-retail-delivery-fee-rdf-support-25-10-2024.

_CALCAVALARA


This attribute will be stored for the customer, ship-to or location. The purpose is to determine if address had been validated which is implied by the existence of the attribute and the matching of address. If so, there's no need to validate address again to prevent excessive communication with Avalara web services.
  • Reference 1 – Notes concerning any failures encountered during tax calculation or address check
  • Reference 2 – Notes Continued
  • Reference 3 – Resolution Quality
  • Reference 4 - Address 1
  • Reference 5 - City, State & Zip Code 
  • Amount 1 – Latitude
  • Amount 2 - Longitude
  • Checkbox 1 – Elliott Zip Checked
  • Checkbox 2 – Avalara Addr Checked
  • Checkbox 3 – Foreign Address
This attribute is created when running the utility programs to mass update the customer, ship-to, or location. It will be updated also when adding a customer or ship-to manually. General speaking, this attribute is not saved for the order unless the ship-to address is manually entered (i.e. drop ship.)

CLS

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