Default to Exclusive of Tax for Invoices and Inclusive for Bills and Expenses

Hi andie787,

Thank you for sharing your experience with us here in the QuickBooks Community. You've given us all something to be mindful of. QuickBooks Online offers different options for setting up your account. It's a streamlined version of QuickBooks, so busy people on the go can utilize it. I can explain what options it offers for default sales tax selections.

QuickBooks Online gives you the option to choose a default sales tax selection in your accounting preferences, which applies to all forms. There isn't an option to set defaults for specific form types. You can change the selection in the individual forms; in the dropdown next to Amounts are you can choose between Inclusive of tax, Exclusive of tax or Out of scope of tax. If you'd like to see other options for tax selection, I invite you to provide feedback.

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1. Go to the Gear Icon.
2. Select Feedback.
3. Fill in your ideas, and click Submit feedback.

If you require further assistance, I'll be here. Have a fantastic evening!

Could someone explain where the "Amounts are" field is? I want to bills and expenses to default to inclusive of tax, while invoices default to exclusive of tax. Thanks!

Hi there andie787,

In order to have your books well balanced, it's key that your transactions have the correct amount of tax added. QuickBooks Online is a great tool that can add up the taxes on sales and expenses in order to calculate the amount owed on your next return. I can provide some information about default taxes.

The default tax rate selection is a default selection to be applied to all transactions, whether they affect suppliers or customers. You can choose to select that all transactions are inclusive or exclusive of tax by default. There isn't a way to have certain types of transactions have one default setting whereas other transactions have the other default setting. I can see how having certain transactions be inclusive of tax by default and other transactions exclusive of tax would be a feature that would help you with managing your sales and expenses in QuickBooks Online. I recommend using the steps that my colleague Tammy put in her last response in order to enter feedback to request the feature. Comments made in the feedback section are taken into consideration by our development team when designing new features for QuickBooks Online. I'll pass along your feedback on my end as well.

If you have any other questions, feel free to reach out here.

This feature needs to be added for efficiency.  Three years later you still have not made this functionality available. 

Hi klisgerton-gmail,  

Although there isn't an option to set a default tax code when creating invoices, bills, or expenses,  QuickBooks Online provides a few ways to set default sales tax codes to your forms.

Here's how to set a default tax code for all of your transactions;

1. Open your Settings ⚙ and select Account and Settings

2. Select Advanced

3. Click on the Edit   for the Accounting section

4. Use the ▼ dropdown menu for Default tax rate, and choose the tax rate

5. Hit Save, and then Done.

Follow these steps to set a default tax code to your Customers;

1. Open Sales, then Customers from the left menu

2. Select the customer's name, then hit Edit

3. Scroll down to the Additional info section

4. Checkmark the box next to Assign default tax code

5. Use the ▼ dropdown menu and select a default tax code from the list

6. Hit Save when done. 

Here's how to set a default tax code to your products/services;

1. Open your Settings ⚙ and select Products and Services

2. Hit Edit to the right of the item you want to add a default tax code to 

3. Scroll down to Sales Tax and use the ▼ dropdown menu to select the tax code

4. Hit Save and Close.

If you have any other questions, please feel free to reach back out.  We'd be glad to assist!