Articles on: Contacts & Products

Automatic Sales Tax Rate Updates in COUNT (U.S. Clients Only)

COUNT helps you stay compliant with U.S. sales tax laws by automatically pulling accurate tax rates based on your customer's billing address. This feature is especially helpful in complex states like Washington, where tax rates vary by city and municipality.


How automatic tax rates work

When you create a new customer in COUNT and enter a valid U.S. billing address, COUNT automatically looks up and applies the correct local sales tax rate. This is powered by a third-party tax service COUNT subscribes to—there’s no need to manually track or enter tax rates for each jurisdiction.


To trigger automatic tax calculation:


  1. Go to Customers and create a new customer.
  2. Enter a full U.S. billing address.
  3. Once the billing address (especially the ZIP code) is entered, COUNT will automatically detect the location and display the corresponding tax rate.
  4. You can choose to apply this tax rate to the customer by checking the box shown.



⚠️ This only works for billing addresses within the United States. Tax rate lookup does not work for billing addresses or for customers outside the U.S.


Managing manually created taxes

You can still create custom tax rates manually if needed. Go to Settings > Sales Tax to view or create them.

  • Manually created taxes can have their names edited, even after they've been used on invoices.
  • You cannot change the tax percentage on a manual tax rate if it has already been used on any invoice.
  • Automatically added tax rates are not editable.

To update a rate that has already been applied:

  1. Leave the original tax rate as-is.
  2. Create a new tax rate with the updated percentage.


Pro Tip: For jurisdictions with frequent tax rate changes (like cities in Washington), create tax rate names that include the month and year (e.g., Seattle Tax – Aug 2025). This makes it easy to track rate history and avoid confusion when reviewing past invoices or reports.


Can I edit an existing tax rate?


✅ Editable: If the tax has not yet been used on any invoice.

🚫 Locked: Once the tax is attached to an approved invoice, the percentage cannot be changed.

  • You can still change the tax name, which will also update in invoices where it's used.


Will automatic rates update existing invoices?

Currently, COUNT does not automatically update tax rates on invoices that have already been sent or created. This ensures tax consistency for your customers.

  • Invoices sent to customers will retain the original tax rate, even if that rate later changes.
  • We recommend creating dated versions of tax rates for better historical tracking.


Limitations

Automatic tax lookup is available only for U.S. billing addresses.


This feature does not support:

  • Other international addresses
  • Sales tax compliance or filing—only rate detection and calculation


FAQs


Q: What happens if I enter an incorrect ZIP code?

A: COUNT will not be able to detect a tax rate. Double-check the ZIP and ensure it's valid and complete.

Q: Do I need to manually update rates when tax percentages change?

A: If you're using automatic tax lookup, COUNT will update rates automatically. For manually created taxes, you will need to create a new version.

Updated on: 01/08/2025

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