Sales tax
Sales tax setup takes two steps: confirm each customer property has a complete service address, and mark which catalog items are taxable. How the rate itself is determined depends on the state in your business address, which you can check in Settings → Accounting under the Sales Tax card.
Check how your state charges sales tax
Chisel Tide picks the tax behavior from the state in your business address. Open Settings → Accounting and read the Sales Tax card to see which case applies to you:
Taxed at the service location — California works this way today. Taxable products are taxed at the rate for the property's service location automatically, using the state's official rate lookup. There is nothing to configure here; your job is keeping each property's service address complete and correct.
One rate at your business location — Some states charge sales tax where the seller is located, so a single rate applies to every taxable product you sell. Enter the combined state and local rate for your address as a percentage (up to three decimal places), or leave it blank to charge no tax, then save. This is the only case with a rate field.
No general sales tax — Nothing to configure. No tax is applied.
Per-address lookup not offered in your state — The card shows an amber notice that automatic sales tax isn't available in your state yet, with a link to email [email protected] so we can prioritize your state.
Business address missing a state — The card asks you to add a state. Open the General tab in Settings and complete your business address.
Confirm each property has a complete service address
When tax is looked up by service address, the lookup needs the street, city, and a five-digit ZIP, so an incomplete property address is the most common reason a rate can't be found. Every property should have all four address fields filled in.
Open the customer's record and go to the Properties tab.
Expand the property card and select Edit property.
Complete Street, City, State, and ZIP. All four fields are required before the form saves, and the Street field offers address autocomplete.
Save the property. Tide re-checks the address and refreshes the property's saved tax rate in the background.
Changing any part of the address clears the previously saved rate, so the next proposal, invoice, or work order for that property picks up the rate for the new address. Saved rates are refreshed every quarter, so rate changes from the state are picked up without any action from you.
Mark catalog items taxable or non-taxable
Each catalog item carries its own taxability flag, and that flag decides whether tax applies when the item is added to a document. Goods are taxable unless you turn it off; labor and other non-taxable services stay untaxed.
Open Products & Catalog from the dashboard navigation.
Select Add Item for a new item, or select a row to edit an existing one.
In the row with Unit of Measure, check or uncheck Taxable. New items start with the box checked.
Save the item.
The catalog list itself doesn't show taxability, so open an item to check its setting. For more on catalog fields, see Products.
Where you see the tax
When you build a proposal, invoice, or work order for a property, the pricing area shows the subtotal, tax, and total using the rate for that property, when a rate is available. Technicians see the same totals when they review a work order created from a route template; if no rate has reached their app yet, tax shows as set by the office and the office fills it in. For how tax appears on the documents customers receive, see Invoices.
Customers billed on one invoice for all their properties are still taxed per property: each property's taxable lines use that property's rate, and properties at different rates appear as separate sales-tax rows on the invoice, in the customer portal, and on the PDF. If a needed property's rate cannot be resolved, that combined recurring invoice is deferred until the rate is available.
Fix a missing tax rate
If the rate for a property can't be determined, a warning appears under the totals: proposals and invoices say Sales tax couldn't be determined for this property's address. Fix the address before saving., and work orders say Sales tax couldn't be determined for this service address. Fix the address on the customer before saving — this work order has taxable items.
A document with taxable items can't be saved until a rate is found. Tide never guesses a 0% rate, so taxable goods aren't silently sold tax-free.
Open the customer's record and go to the Properties tab.
Expand the property card and select Edit property.
Complete Street, City, State, and ZIP, then save.
Return to the document and confirm the warning is gone before saving it.
If the state's rate service is temporarily unavailable, Tide uses the last known rate instead, and work orders show a note that the last known rate is being used because the state's rate service is unavailable. The rate refreshes once the service is reachable again.