Point of Sale Settings: Taxes

Configure Your Taxes

You can get to this part of the system by clicking on the gear-shaped button on the right side of our blue Admin Toolbar, click Settings, then click POS Settings > Taxes.

Tax Rows - Each row on the Taxes screen is a separate Tax Jurisdiction, or type of tax that might apply.

Till Columns - Each column after the Defaults column is a separate Till you've set up in your system, and each one can have unique Tax Rates for each of your Tax Jurisdictions. By default you are allowed two separate Tills in the system, if you need to add more, please call us at 877-909-6699 and use option 1 for our Sales team.

Tax Rates - Where each row meets a Till column, there is an area to put in a unique tax rate that would apply to that Till for that Jurisdiction. For example, perhaps in your area there is a special reduced tax jurisdiction for books as in the example above, and in your Main Register Till, that intersecting Tax Rate might be 5%, but in your Out of State Till, the Books rate, as with all other tax rates, would be 0%.

Adding Your Tax Jurisdictions - You can add tax jurisdictions as needed, but please read this section in its entirety before your start! Click the Add Jurisdiction button, and in the side panel, enter the Name (e.g. your Service taxes), don't check the box to Limit Price Range unless you are setting up Tiered Taxes (see below). Enter the base Rate (or leave it blank and enter it separately for each Till column). And finally Set as Default if it will be the default of one of your tax areas (e.g. this will be our default Service tax rate for all service-based work that goes through the Register). Click the green Add button to finish adding your new Tax Jurisdiction. NOTE: If you use a tiered-tax system in your state, please see the section below on how to set that up.

Important Info About Tax Jurisdictions - You will want to make as few tax jurisdictions as possible. For example, it might seem logical to set up a separate jurisdiction for State, County, and Municipal or City tax rates and just allow them to combine in the Register. If you do this, your taxes will be off. The reason it is best not to do this is that in each tax calculation on each product in a transaction, each tax rate you have has the possibility of ending up with fractional cents, and those can add up over a month to throw your taxes off and have you paying too much. With only a single default tax rate for your products, the fractional cents will end up averaging out and being accurate overall, so it is best to combine your tax rates into a unified rate. At the end of your tax reporting period, break out the total amount of taxes collected by formula to pay each of your separate jurisdictions.

Setting Your Default Taxes - There are three types of Default Taxes you can set in the Rain POS system:

• Product - Your Product default tax will automatically apply to every product in your Products module, and every new product you create in the system. If you don't want the Product default rate to apply to a certain group of products, for instance as with our earlier example of books, you can go into each of those products individually to the Advanced tab and check only the boxes for the tax rate(s) you want to apply.
• Service - You can set your Service default tax rate so that all labor-based work, such as Work Orders, has the correct tax rate applied in the Register.
• Class - This default rate will apply to the instruction portion of the classes you teach as you default Class rate. It will not apply to materials you sell for the class; those will use your default Product tax in the normal way.

Adding Tiered-Tax Jurisdictions - If your state has a tiered-tax system, where different tax rates apply at differing transaction total amounts, here is how to set them up. First, click the Add Jurisdiction button.

In this example, we will have three separate tiers of taxes. For the First Tier, the tax rate will apply to all purchases totaling less than $2,000, so in the Name field we will call it Tier One 2k. Check the box that says Limit Price Range Where Tax Is Applied and for your first tier, you will set the Min Price to be 1-cent. The Max Price will be one penny less than $2,000 in this case, so we will enter $1,999.99. Set the Rate that applies to that range for transaction totals, in this case 5.5%, and Set it as your Default Product tax rate. Click the Add button to save the first tier.

We'll set up the Second Tier next, but for all of your tiers, remember that the price ranges have to go to the very next penny, so that no transactions will be missed. They also cannot overlap, so you can't have the Max Price on one be the same as the Min Price on the next one: always go to the next penny!

For the Second Tier, the tax rate will apply to all purchases totaling less than $5,000, so in the Name field we will call it Tier Two 5k. Check the box that says Limit Price Range Where Tax Is Applied and for your second tier, you will set the Min Price to be $2,000, which is one penny more than the Max Price of Tier One. The Max Price will be one penny less than $5,000 in this case, so we will enter $4,999.99. Set the Rate that applies to that range for transaction totals, in this case 7.8%, and Set it as your Default Product tax rate. Click the Add button to save the second tier. Please note that this rate is not cumulative with the previous tier, so if your state has you charge an additional rate over the lower tiered rate, just add the two and use that for the total rate in a given tier.

For the Third Tier, the tax rate will apply to all purchases totaling less than $20,000.01, so in the Name field we will call it Tier Three 5k+. If your final tier has no top-end, put in a ridiculously high number such as $10,000,000. Check the box that says Limit Price Range Where Tax Is Applied and for this third example tier, we will set the Min Price to be $5,000. The Max Price will be $20,000. Set the Rate that applies to that range for transaction totals, in this case 10%, and Set it as your Default Product tax rate. Click the Add button to save the third tier.