Is there a way to switch between different tax rates since I sell in different cities?

[HMH]

I have a mobile food truck and sell in several different cities within my state - all with different sales tax rates.  Is there a way to make the change quickly and easily through Square?

[Tom · Accepted solution]

Hello @HMH — thanks for surfacing!

If you have one food truck, I would suggest adjusting the tax directly from the Point of Sale app prior to opening up for business in each county.

To do so:

• Tap the icon below to visit your in-app Settings
  
• Tap Settings > Tax. 
• On an iPhone, tap the + icon in the top-right corner. On an iPad, tap Add a New Tax, and on an Android device, tap Create Tax. 
• Enter the tax information and toggle on Enabled to automatically apply this tax at checkout. 
• Tap Applicable Items to choose which items this tax will automatically apply to. Note: if all of your sales should be taxed, just tap on Tax All Items. Toggle on Custom Amounts to apply this tax to amounts entered at the time of a sale.
• Tap the back arrow > Item Pricing. Select if this tax will be included in item prices or added to a price at the time of sale.
• Make sure to save your updates.

If you have multiple trucks and need to accept payments in multiple counties simultaneously, I would suggest assigning a location to each truck. This will allow you to designate a county for each truck and collect the correct amount of tax.

Hope this helps get you in the right direction. Please feel free to chime in with any other questions or insight! 🙂

[dnyl2010]

Not a helpful solution for one device going to multiple locations.  Square needs to adjust the app so only one tax setting can be enabled at a time and give us an easier way to switch tax rates ie a drop down from the register.

[Kelly]

@dnyl2010 Sorry to hear that Tom's solution isn't what you were looking for! I absolutely hear you in how a drop down would be simpler but some businesses do need the ability to apply multiple taxes to an item. 

If going into the settings isn't the best way to handle your taxes, you can also edit your taxes right in the sale! Just follow the steps below:

- Tap Current Sale at the top of your Register.

- Tap Tax.

- Select the tax rates you would like to delete. 

[dnyl2010]

This is terrific! Now all I have to do is remember but its much more helpful than having to adjust rates in settings because if you leave the sale to do so you lose the data.  YEA you have helped me a lot!

[orchidsamore]

I do this all the time in Florida we have dozens of rates. 

Under settings choose taxes and create one for every rate you need.

They can be turned on or off, so turn on only the one you are using that day.

To change turn off the old one and turn on the rate you want.  They all display onthe same screen.

They never have to be deleted or modified.

It only takes a few seconds  remember to hit SAVE in the top right corner or nothing happens.

[Sean]

@orchidsamore - Thanks for taking the time to share. 🙂

[creatorofstuff]

I want to make sure I'm following this. I am going to do some art shows in several cities that have different tax rates. At first I thought I needed to enter different locations, but that seems wrong, because of the way it would look on the receipt. 

So, I created a "tax" for each city, with the "location" being my regular business (which is not a brick and mortar). 

Am I understanding correctly that you are saying that when I go to sell for the day, I can select one of those "taxes", and have it apply to all sales until I change it? I don't want to be stressed out while trying to figure this out live! 

I also want to make sure I don't get confused when reporting sales to the BOE. Will I be able to see on the report which "tax" I used, by name? (I named them with the city names.)

This is new to me. 

[Sean]

Hi @creatorofstuff. Happy to recap things for you! You can certainly create multiple taxes, and then enable/disable as you'd like them to be applied to items. You'll just want to make sure that you do make sure that the tax is applied to each item. You can double check your tax settings in-app before you get rolling for the day: Settings > Taxes (see which are active). From the Tax Report on the Square Dashboard, you will be able to tell exactly which tax (by name) was applied over any time period.

[creatorofstuff]

Thank you, Sean. That is helpful.

I'm still confused about one thing. I turned off all the taxes except the one I need for the upcoming event. But it only shows 4 products being assigned that tax (for some reason).

Do I literally have to go in and edit every single product in order to apply that particular tax to it for the day? It seems like that is the case. Or is that because I had no foresight when creating the product entries originally? I have a lot of products, so I don't want to have to edit every one each time I go somewhere unless it's the only way. That would seem pretty cumbersome and inefficient. 

Help! 

[Sean]

Hi again, @creatorofstuff. From the Dashboard, you should be able to just click the check box next to "All Items." Here is a screenshot:

[creatorofstuff]

Fantastic! That is exactly what I needed. Thank you so much. 🙂 

[Sean]

Happy to help! You can all do this from inside the app in the tax settings. 🙂

[creatorofstuff]

Sorry. I have another question related to this. I am now realizing that each item shows two tax rates. Is there an easy way to only show one tax rate for all items? I will be selling in different cities, and they all have different tax rates. I first sold in San Diego, and now it will be Pasadena. I applied the Pasadena rate to all items, but if you click on each item, it shows tax rate for San Diego AND Pasadena. How can I remove San Diego without going through all items by hand? 

Thanks! 

[Tom]

Hey @creatorofstuff, thanks for pointing this out. I see what you mean — if you have a lot of items and need to change the tax for all of them because of frequent location changes, it adds a lot of work. In this case, if you're not able to adjust the tax rate prior to setting up in Pasadena — I would suggest Kelly's workaround and edit the tax during the sale.

I realize that this process is a bit cumbersome, and I'll be sure to share this with our Product Liaison team. Thank you again for taking the time to share your experience. We will circle back with any updates or other solutions.

[EatWalkLearn]

HI all, and thanks so much for chiming in here.

I think I understand what I need to do, but I just want to confirm.

I sell in many locations within Denver, sometimes it's within the city and sometimes not. I have one product. I move throughout the day.

So, should I set up different taxes for the different cities and then select which tax will be used during that sales event?

For example, I have Denver City, Littleton City, Thornton City.

I would set up Denver tax, Littleton tax, Thornton tax.

When I'm in Thornton, for example, can I "'turn on" the Thornton tax for all the following transactions until I change it when I go to the next location, for example, Littleton?

Naive question here, but is there an easy way to figure out what the tax rate is where I am currently selling?

[orchidsamore]

I sell in Florida where we have 20-30 different rates around the state.  Creating multiple rates and turning them on or off works easily.  I would suggest to name them by the rate rather than the city.  I have 6% 6 1/2% 7% etc, I move around so much I can not remember the rate by city name.   Be careful not to have two rates on at the same time.  I forget what happened but I think it charged both.  

[orchidsamore]

when you go into settings on square go into taxes and it will show all rates and whether it is turned on or off.  Tap on any you want to turn off and then the one you want to turn on.  It takes less than a minute.  Remember to hit save on the upper right or it will not make the change.

[royelectricllc]

Is there a way to select a sales tax rate on entire transactions and still have the line item on off flexibility? We have 8 different tax rates to deal with and selecting them for each item is way to time consuming. Managing (8) virtual locations within your app isn't practical either.

[AshleyK]

@royalelectricllc you can have certain taxes applied to specific items. You will need to edit this under "Items" in either the App or the Dashboard. Otherwise, the best way to move forward with this will be to create multiple locations and have taxes toggled on for the location in question, that way you won't have to turn them on and off continually. 

[dharari]

I have an additional question. I have all the tax rates set up for an upcomming event - this event will be in 4 separate counties on the same day. If an employee signs in can they set the tax rate for their location without it changing it for all the other employees which have different sign ins? We will have multiple devices running at each location.