TaxCloud is now integrated with PrestoStore, a hosted web store system. You can use TaxCloud to calculate sales tax by selecting a few options once you log into your PrestoStore account. In order to use TaxCloud with PrestoStore, you will need your TaxCloud API ID and Key (found in the Locations section of TaxCloud) and a USPS ID. Detailed instructions are available in the PrestoStore Help Center.
You can learn more about PrestoStore.com at http://www.prestostore.com.
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Posted by TaxCloud
Many PHP developers are working with custom shopping carts or other systems that need to calculate taxes. We have provided some working example code that will allow you to quickly integrate your applications with TaxCloud. The communication between your system and TaxCloud is done through web services. The example code includes all the web service calls, so you can simply call the supplied methods.
The first step is to create a merchant account at TaxCloud.net. After you do that, we will send you a copy of the user guide, which describes how to set up your merchant account and create a test site. Once you have set up your test site, the system will generate your TaxCloud API ID and Key, which identifies you to our system. The guide also describes how to get a USPS ID, which is required for the address verification service.
The next step is to determine where to place the integration in your system. In a shopping cart application, it’s standard to make it part of the checkout process, after the user has entered a shipping address.
The basic process is as follows:
1. Verify the customer’s address using the VerifyAddress service. This will determine the 9-digit zip code for the shipping address, which is necessary to make an accurate tax calculation. If your system already verifies addresses you can skip this step.
2. Look up the taxes for the items in the shopping cart.
3. Once the order has been completed, you call the Authorized and Captured services to complete the transaction in TaxCloud and to record that payment has been made. This follows the standard pattern of a credit card transaction. It is also possible to combine these two calls into one, which is what will be shown in this example. You can determine which method to use based on the design of your system.
That’s it! The TaxCloud system needs to receive a tax identification code (TIC ID) for each product so it can determine the tax rate to use. You will have to store this information along with your product. There is some optional functionality that you may want to include. TaxCloud can also manage exemption certificates for customers and apply them to orders. You can also return part or all of an order. We are just covering the basics in this post.
Read the rest of this entry »
3 Comments | PHP Example Code | Permalink
Posted by Dave
We are proud to announce that a new version of the TaxCloud Operating Procedures and User Guide is now available! This document contains information on setting up your merchant account as well as detailed developer information.
The guide covers all the features of TaxCloud, including but not limited to:
– Real-time sales tax calculation
– Automatic merchant registration with all state agencies
– Automatic filing of sales tax returns
– Using Taxability Information Codes
– Managing exemption certificates
– Address verification
– And more!
You can download a copy of this guide by logging into your TaxCloud merchant account, going to the “API Instructions” area, and clicking on the “Operating Procedures and User Guide” link.
11 Comments | TaxCloud | Permalink
Posted by Dave
There have been several reports of issues with certain versions of PHP when using Zen Cart and TaxCloud. The TaxCloud module uses web services to communicate with the TaxCloud server to calculate taxes. This communication is done over an SSL connection. Therefore we require a PHP configuration that is set up with cURL and SSL.
PHP version 5 is the minimum version that would meet these requirements. However, it appears that there are a few newer versions that are having issues with SSL. So far we have seen this issue with versions 5.2.13, 5.2.14, 5.2.15 and 5.2.17. The error received looks like the following:
Fatal error: Uncaught SoapFault exception: [WSDL] SOAP-ERROR: Parsing WSDL: Couldn’t load from ‘https://api.taxcloud.net/1.0/TaxCloud.asmx?WSDL’ : Start tag expected, ‘SoapClient(‘https://api.tax…’) #1 /home/wysecent/public_html/dsb/init.php(1314): require(‘/home/wysecent/…’) #2 /home/wysecent/public_html/dsb/preauth.php(69): include_once(‘/home/wysecent/…’) #3 /home/wysecent/public_html/dsb/auth.php(60): require(‘/home/wysecent/…’) #4 /home/wysecent/public_html/dsb/home.php(52): require(‘/home/wysecent/…’) #5 {main} thrown in /home/wysecent/public_html/dsb/modules/TaxCloud/taxCloudConfig.php on line 22
The solution to this issue is to upgrade to PHP 5.3. There may be other solutions but they have not been verified.
3 Comments | TaxCloud Shopping Cart Integrations, ZenCart | Permalink
Posted by Dave
We are proud to announce that the TaxCloud implementation for Zen Cart now fully supports PayPal Express Checkout. Without this implementation, the default implementation of PayPal Express Checkout in Zen Cart is not complete in that it does not support dynamic tax calculations within PayPal. When the “Express Checkout Shortcut Button” is used on the shopping cart page, the Zen Cart checkout process is skipped so tax is never calculated.
We have resolved this issue by implementing the “callback” process within PayPal. Once the customer is redirected to PayPal and logs in PayPal then calls back to the server to retrieve shipping options and tax rates. Once the customer chooses a shipping option they are redirected back to Zen Cart to complete the order. We now have a complete integration with PayPal, Zen Cart and TaxCloud.
If the “Express Checkout Shortcut Button” is not used PayPal Express Checkout can still be used. PayPal can be selected as a payment method and the taxes calculated by TaxCloud will be passed over to PayPal.
The new code is available for download here.
Note: Your server will need to have SSL enabled to be able to use the callback process. Not all shipping modules have been implemented yet. Currently we support Flat Rate, Per Item, Free Shipping, Per Weight Unit and Store Pickup.
11 Comments | TaxCloud Shopping Cart Integrations, ZenCart | Permalink
Posted by Dave
New Version of TaxCloud Implementation for Zen Cart – Now Supporting Tax Exemptions!
We are proud to announce a new version (v1.4) of the TaxCloud implementation for Zen Cart. This version includes a number of enhancements and bug fixes. It also supports coupon functionality and tax exemptions!
Zen Cart does not support tax exemptions on its own. The TaxCloud implementation allows customers to create, view, apply, and delete tax exemption certificates from within Zen Cart. Certificates are stored in TaxCloud so that they can be retrieved and applied to the order each time the user logs in to Zen Cart. None of the customer’s private data is stored on Zen Cart’s server. It is all securely stored within TaxCloud. The coupon and tax exemption modules can be turned on and off from within the Zen Cart management console.
This release is the only full-featured tax management solution for Zen Cart.
The installation directions are the same as for the other versions. The files can be downloaded here.
7 Comments | TaxCloud Shopping Cart Integrations, ZenCart | Permalink
Posted by Dave
TaxCloud is a free, easy-to-use sales tax calculation and remittance service for retailers. It’s the only service created to comply with the Streamlined Sales and Use Tax Agreement (SSUTA) at a scale to support all internet merchants.
osCommerce is a popular Open Source online shop e-commerce solution that is powered by a dedicated, strong, and ever growing community, and is released under the GNU General Public License.
The standard osCommerce software implements tax calculations by defining tax rates for a geographical zone. The tax is either calculated based on the merchant’s address or the customer’s shipping address. To set this up for the entire US you would have to create a zone for each zip+4 code in the country for each tax class. This would be difficult and hard to maintain. Implementing the TaxCloud module makes tax lookups easy.
This module was developed using v2.3.1 of osCommerce. Installing the module for this version of the software is as easy as extracting the files from the TaxCloud zip file over the existing osCommerce installation. The code for other versions of the software will be similar but you may instead have to edit the PHP files directly to include the TaxCloud code.
** Update – version 1.4 now includes support for Exemption Certificates! **
The TaxCloud sample module is available on GitHub.
Installation
1. Ensure that SOAP is enabled (php_curl and php_soap in php.ini)
2. Back up your current osCommerce installation.
27 Comments | osCommerce | Permalink
Posted by Dave
TaxCloud is a free, easy-to-use sales tax calculation and remittance service for retailers. It’s the only service created to comply with the Streamlined Sales and Use Tax Agreement (SSUTA) at a scale to support all internet merchants.
Zen Cart e-commerce is free, user-friendly, open-source shopping cart software. It is available from http://www.zen-cart.com/.
TaxCloud is now available for use with Zen Cart as a “Module”. It was developed using v1.3.9 of Zen Cart. To install this module you merely have to extract the zip file into the Zen Cart installation directory and configure it through the Zen Cart admin application. The zip file contains a readme file which provides further instructions.
The files for the module can be downloaded here:
https://github.com/taxcloud/ZenCart
Configuration:
19 Comments | TaxCloud Shopping Cart Integrations, ZenCart | Permalink
Posted by Dave
We at FedTax are pleased to announce that we have integrated our TaxCloud service with the KonaKart shopping cart software.
TaxCloud provides a comprehensive sales tax service for U.S. online merchants. The service is entirely free of charge. This is possible because revenues are provided by state governments under the Streamlined States initiative.
Some features of TaxCloud include the ability to calculate local sales taxes in over 13,000 jurisdictions and account for type of merchandise, exemptions, tax holidays, etc. TaxCloud will file merchant tax returns and handle remittances.
There is no software or database to install. Rather, the relevant tax data is delivered to the KonaKart over a real-time web services API. The web service calls are taken care of by the API code. You just need to make simple calls to the TaxCloud Java objects to call the appropriate services.
The TaxCloud API code is available on SourceForge: https://sourceforge.net/projects/taxcloudlibs/
To use these services you will also need to create a free Merchant account at: http://taxcloud.net/
This integration was build on version 5.0 of the KonaKart software. I modified two classes and I am also including some sql to insert the custom properties required for this integration.
If you have any question please feel free to contact us at: integration@taxcloud.net
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Posted by Dave
Tax.java