Configure your QuickBooks account

Activate sales tax calculation

To begin showing tax on your QuickBooks invoices, you will first need to activate sales tax calculation on your QuickBooks account (if you have not done so already). During this process, QuickBooks will require you to activate a tax agency.

Try activating sales tax in the demo above ☝️

1. In the QuickBooks app , go to Sales tax. Take me there!
2. Click Use Automatic Sales Tax, then enter your business address. Automatic Sales Tax is only available for US QuickBooks accounts. 
3. If asked: Do you need to collect sales tax outside of state?, select No.
4. If asked: Have you registered for sales tax with any other agency?, select No.
5. Under Filing frequency, select Monthly.
6. Click Save.

Make all products and services taxable

Since Anrok is a tax integration, QuickBooks only allows Anrok to digest invoices with products and services marked as taxable. All your products and services in QuickBooks must be taxable for Anrok to provide tax calculations on your invoices.

Try making a product taxable in the demo above ☝️

1. In the QuickBooks app , go to Product and services. Take me there!
2. Locate the item, then under the ACTION column, click Edit.
3. Scroll down to Sales tax, then click Edit sales tax. 
4. Under Other options, select Taxable.
5. Click Done, then select Save and close.

Create a custom field for customer VAT IDs

Adding a VAT ID to your customer's invoices will be essential for tracking international economic nexus and exposure. To display a VAT ID on your invoices, you will need to create a customer_tax_id custom field on the QuickBooks Customer. Once this custom field has been created, Anrok can use your customer's VAT ID to verify an invoice's taxability in a given country/region.

1. In the QuickBooks app , go to Settings ⚙ and select Custom fields. Take me there!
2. Click Add field.
   • If you are using QBO Advanced, we recommend using a Customer-level custom field to persist the ID across all future transactions for that customer.
   • If you do not have QBO Advanced, then you can use a Transaction-level custom field instead. Transaction-level fields can be added to recurring invoice templates to avoid needing to copy the field manually to each invoice. 
3. For the data type, select Text and number. 
4. In the Name field, enter customer_tax_id or customer_tax_id_2.
5. Check the box for All Sales forms.
6. Click Save. 
7. Note: QuickBooks requires that this custom field be one of the first three Text and number custom fields created on your QuickBooks account including inactive custom fields. If you already have created three previous Text and number custom fields on your QuickBooks account, you will have to repurpose one of your existing custom fields for customer_tax_id or customer_tax_id_2. This QuickBooks documentation provides more information about this restriction. 

Now that you’ve set up your QuickBooks account to work smoothly with Anrok, let's look at how to ensure Anrok's sales tax is added to your invoices. Check out our best practices for invoicing in QuickBooks.