Question

The sales tax is not automatically being added to my client invoice. How can I fix this?

Forum|Forum|5 years ago
August 22, 2020
3 replies
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Original commenter did not share additional details

QuickBooks Online

R

ReymondO

There are several factors on why you're sales tax isn't calculating on your invoices, @billjmallek.

First, let me share with you how QuickBooks Online calculates the total tax rate for each sale. Here's are those:

Your customer’s tax-exempt status
Where you sell and where you ship
What you sell

Your customer's tax status may be the reason why the sales tax isn't calculating on the invoice. You can check out this article on how you can determine if your sale is exempt from tax: Conducting non-taxable sales.

Another factor is the state where you sell and ship the product or perform the services. To get more details on how this factor affects the calculation, you can check out this link: https://quickbooks.intuit.com/r/sales-tax/the-sales-tax-life-cycle-of-a-lemon/.

To fix this concern, make sure to check the following:

Your customer's tax status- Go to the Sales menu and select Customers. Click the name of the customer and select Edit. Then, go to the Tax info and make sure that the This customer is tax-exempt box isn't checked.
Business location or where you sell/ship the product.
How you add sales tax categories to your products and services.

In addition, you can run the Sales Tax Liability report to view your sales tax info anytime.

Don't hesitate to tag my name in the comment section below if you have other concerns or questions aside from sales tax. I'm always ready to help.

B

billjmallekAuthor

The client in question is taxable. When I click on NYS tax rate of .08725 the sales tax does not automatically populate on the invoice. These is an icon that says "show math" below the box that should p[opulate with tax amount. I click on that and nothing happens.

Is there a bug in the software that needs to be fixed? any suggestions on how to get this fixed? I there someone in Intuit that can access my program and repair problem??

Bill

MaryLandT

Allow me to step and fix the issue about the sales tax not being added on the invoice , billjmallek.

After selecting the NYS tax rate, you'll also need to make sure the item is taxable. This will allow QuickBooks to calculate taxes.

You can click the Tax field to make the item taxable. See the attached screenshot below for your visual guide.

You can also mark the item as taxable through the Product and Services page. Doing this will automatically enable the check mark in the Tax column on the invoice.

Let me show you how:

Go to Sales from the left navigation bar, then choose Products and Services.
Find the item, then click Edit under Action.
On the Product/Service information window, select Taxable - standard rate under Sales tax category.
Click Save and close.

I've added this link: Set up and use automated sales tax to learn how QuickBooks do you sales tax calculations for your invoices.

Stay in touch if you need additional information by clicking the Reply button below. I'm always right here to help ensure the sales tax amount is added to the client's invoice.

A

AARDWOLF1

Remember to check the "Taxable?" box at the end of each taxable line-item on the invoice. You can thank me later. : )

E

evanmcnally

This finally allowed me to get QBO to actually compute ST. Thank you!

I am wondering why QBO is unable to do this automatically without clicking the "Tax" box on each line item for an invoice? Product and customer are both marked as taxable in advance of invoice creation.

QBO's attempts to automatically calculate based on location are simply wrong. The automation basically just interferes with me applying the correct rate to my customers. No one asked for this program to make wrong guesses about Sales Tax and them try to prevent correcting its wrong guesses.

Further tip to everyone: Sign up for an accountant account then make yourself the accountant of your company. Your real accountant can still be associated because 2 accountant accounts are allowed. This will allow you to delete QBO's automated, error ridden sales tax guesses and replace it with a correct (manually created) return.

The accountant features also allow you to perform basic tasks which Intuit seems to think should off limits to regular business people, such as easily viewing account bank balances in one screen. Or fixing a ST return. Or reclassifying several transactions at once. It's a breath of fresh air compared to the normal, dumbed down user interface.

The accountant features go a long ways towards making QBO usable to people who do understand their books. It's your "get out of kindergarten free" card.

Still looking for why QBO cannot assume line items are taxable. None of the instructions here got me that far. Fortunately I mainly use Harvest for invoices and it does calculate ST correctly and easily...you know, in the manner every accounting program ever, other than QBO.

J

jamespaul

Hello, Evan.

I appreciate sharing your insights and solutions regarding the sales tax calculation problem.

I'd like to address the Tax box issue when creating an invoice in QuickBooks Online.

Just to clarify, QuickBooks Online does mark the line items as taxable automatically provided that the customer and the items are taxable.

You mentioned that you use Harvest for invoices. Did you integrate it with QuickBooks Online? If so, check Harvest's app settings and see if there any settings that causes this.

If you use QuickBooks Online and Harvest separately, this might just be a simple webpage lag issue. You can refresh the invoice creation screen page to fix this.

If it still persist, you'll want to check to see if this is a cache-related problem. Isolate this by using an incognito window:

Google Chrome: Press CTRL + Shift + N.
Safari: Press Command + Shift + N.
Mozilla Firefox: Press CTRL + Shift + P.

After opening the incognito window, log in to QuickBooks and create a test invoice and check the Tax box. If it checks the box automatically, go back to the regular browser and clear the cache.

When the prompts are done, close out any browser instances to finish the process. You can also use another supported browser since each browser uses a different cache data.

If you'd like to check on your financial data after fixing the Tax box issue, you can read this article to see what reports you can run: Run reports in QuickBooks Online.

Do you have any other concerns related to sales taxes? Or do you need help with other things such as expense transactions? Let me know the details below. I'll help you out.

D

DAAshley

I am having the same issue. i cant close out an invoice because the spinny wheel just keeps moving saying its calculating tax even though the amount shown is the correct tax....HELP

MaryLandT

Let's get rid of the spinning wheel so you can assign a sales tax to your invoice, DAAshley.

QuickBooks Online uses browser cache and cookies to run faster. But sometimes these can also block web pages from loading.

When this occurs, let's log into your account using a private or incognito browser. Then, manage sales tax from there. When that works, go back to your default browser and clear its cache and cookies to fix the issue.

Depending on your browser, please choose a link below to see the detailed steps.

After clearing the cache, make sure to restart your browser for changes to take effect. To have the best and most secure experience with QuickBooks Online, use a supported, up-to-date browser.

Once done, log into your QuickBooks account and assign a sales tax to your invoice. If you're still seeing the spinning wheel, I'll let you contact our QuickBooks Live Team. They can create a case under your company and provide updates via email.

I'm adding these articles :

Leave a comment below if you need anything else with adding a sales tax to your invoices. I'll be right here whenever you need more help with this.

A

alonsoowd

Im having almost the same issue, mine is taxable-based on location only and calculates the right tax rate, but does not print on invoice the % on it, sample, CA 9.75%, is there any way to let the system get that % in the invoice format? Thank you

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