Setting up tax calculations in BigCommerce

After you connect TaxJar to calculate your store's sales taxes in BigCommerce, this article covers general guidance regarding your sales tax settings: 

Turning on calculations for your nexus states in BigCommerce

After enabling TaxJar in your BigCommerce configuration, please go to your TaxJar account to turn on calculations for your nexus states! 

  • Log into TaxJar Account State Nexus Settings.
  • Select "Edit" next to the state or "Add new nexus state" if you do not see the state listed there. 
  • Complete the State details and check "TaxJar API calls will return sales tax amounts to collect for this state

    (Some integrations require upgraded plans. If you do not have this option, please contact us at support@taxjar.com )
  • Click "Save Information" - then repeat for each nexus state! 

Setting up your fallback or manual rates in BigCommerce

BigCommerce's standard sales tax setup automatically assigns a fallback rate of 10%.

We strongly recommend taking this additional step and setting up your manual sales tax rates:

  1. To set up taxes manually, go to Store Setup › Tax, and ensure that Manual tax is enabled.
  2. Choose "Use my Manual Tax settings." instead of flat rate:
  3. Set up the flat state sales tax rate for your nexus states - BigCommerce walks you through how to set these up manually here.
  4. For your non-nexus states, you can enter in zero (0) to ensure BigCommerce doesn't default to a 10% rate for your non-nexus states. 

These manual rates are only used in the case that our API is inaccessible or some other error occurs, which is very rare.  TaxJar's API has a 99.99% uptime. 

  • However, if there's a connection error between the two integrations, then it's possible BigCommerce's fallback rates would be triggered.
  • As BigCommerce states here, setting up your manual tax configuration to calculate tax in the event there is an interruption in service may provide more accurate tax calculations than the flat 10% rate

How do I complete the Tax Options in my BigCommerce configuration?

No, at this time you do not need to adjust any of the Tax Options shown here:

How do I categorize my products in BigCommerce?

Please first edit your products in BigCommerce and add a TaxJar product tax code.

  • After your transactions complete and download into your TaxJar account, to categorize them you would go to your "Exemptions" tab in your TaxJar account. 
  • We walk through categorizing your products here.

Setting up customer exemption categories in BigCommerce

We provide more information here on managing your customer exemptions.

  • This allows TaxJar to calculate sales tax (or exempt sales tax) appropriately based on entity/customer status. 
  • When you designate tax-exempt, resale, and wholesale transactions in TaxJar, your TaxJar Expected Sales Tax Due Reports will be accurate and, you can AutoFile only the sales tax you collected.

Can I enable calculations (and not import orders) for my BigCommerce store?

Yes! If you would prefer to use TaxJar calculations and not import your sales orders into your TaxJar account at this time, please check the "Calculations only" box:

⚠️  Checking this box will prevent sales import orders from importing into your TaxJar account. This will affect your TaxJar Reports which may not be complete with all the necessary sales data. If you'd like to use your TaxJar Reports for filing your sales tax returns, we strongly recommend not checking this checkbox.

If you do import your BigCommerce order into TaxJar, please keep in mind the following:

1) TaxJar's BigCommerce integration will import BigCommerce orders that have a status of 'completed', 'shipped', 'refunded', or 'partially shipped’.

2) Transactions may take 1-3 days to show up in your TaxJar account.

Can TaxJar set up my BigCommerce sales tax configuration for me?

Please note, TaxJar does not currently set up your BigCommerce TaxJar account settings on your behalf. 

  • Each business is different and there are many other steps in sales tax compliance that we can't see or control from our end. 
  • This often requires knowledge specific to your business and we recommend consulting with your legal advisor or a sales tax expert.
    • At this time, TaxJar does not provide sales tax consultation or legal services.

If you have additional questions regarding TaxJar's integration with BigCommerce, please contact TaxJar Support.