Use a Customer Profile
A customer profile is a collection of file specifications that affect tax determination. Profiles enable you to customize tax calculations according to your business needs. Avalara must set up your customer profiles, which can be associated with your own business or the businesses of your clients. You might have a business need for one, several, or zero customer profiles.
Note: Don't confuse customer profiles with Preferences you enter to define the choices you see in the Portal's interface.
Examples of file types you can specify in customer profiles that are used in tax calculations:
- Bundle files
- Exclusion files
- Nexus files
- Override files
- Exemption files
Details about the file types for each item are shown here.
| File Type | Description | File Extension | How to Create It | Where It Is Applied |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bundle | Bundles enable you to associate a group of transaction/service pairs with an offering and enable you to specify the percentage of the sale amount to be applied to each pair. When taxes are calculated for bundled transactions, the appropriate taxes are calculated for each transaction/service associated with the transaction/service type defined for the bundle. |
.bdl | In the AFC Manager (AFC Bundler component) | Avalara AvaTax for Communications SaaS Pro (REST) |
| Exclusion | Indicates countries or states where no tax should be applied. | .exc | In the AFC Manager | Avalara AvaTax for Communications SaaS Pro (REST) |
| Avalara AvaTax for Communications SaaS Pro (REST) |
Identifies tax type exemptions, category exemptions, or both. |
.exm | In the AFC Manager or Customer Portal |
Avalara AvaTax for Communications SaaS Standard; Avalara AvaTax for Communications SaaS Pro (REST); Avalara AvaTax for Communications SaaS Pro (SOAP) |
| Overrides | Used to modify tax rates for a specified jurisdiction, alter the tax logic for transaction/ services, and add or remove taxes from transaction/services. | .ovr | In the AFC Manager (Rate and Logic Modifier (RLM) component) | Avalara AvaTax for Communications SaaS Pro (REST) |
| Nexus | Indicates the jurisdictions that require you to calculate sales and use taxes. | .nex | In the AFC Manager - Sales and Use Viewer | Avalara AvaTax for Communications SaaS Pro (REST) |
To set up customer profiles, please contact Avalara for Communications Support. When you contact Support, have these items ready:
- Files for bundles, exclusions, nexus, exemptions, and overrides.
- Where you want to use customer profiles (for example, in a production system or in testing)
Test customer profiles
You can test customer profiles in the Developer Content section of the Portal where you can access a REST Swagger tool. (Note that you cannot perform testing in the Tax Determination tab of the Customer Portal.) You must have profiles set up by Support to use this feature.
- Click the Apps dropdown menu in the upper right corner of the Customer Portal, then click Developer Content.
- Select AFC SaaS Pro Tax, and then select the AFC REST Swagger tab.
- Enter the client_id and profile_id fields. These values are provided by Support when you set up your profiles.
- Expand Tax Calculation, then select Post for /api/v2/afc/CalcTaxes.
- For sample code, scroll down in the window and click Try it out!. Scroll horizontally to see the sample code generated. Copy and paste this code to test your customer profiles.
Select profile and customer during tax determination
If customer profiles are a part of your business, it is important that you use the correct one before you make updates to information in the Communications Customer Portal. After you have profiles set up, you will see them in a dropdown in the upper right corner of the Customer Portal.
- Select from the list of profiles. The system defaults to 0, meaning no profile is used.
- If you have multiple customers, select one from the dropdown. The profile you selected will be applied to this customer.
Be sure to select the correct name if there are multiple customer names (for example, some customer names could represent parent organizations, such as TelecomCust LLC).
