Is there a way to turn off the sales tax "based on location" feature? It is causing conflicts with our 3rd party accounting software.

Thanks for coming in to Community, @tim107.

I'll share with you the information I have about sales tax calculation. Below are the lists of how QuickBooks calculates your taxes. Let's check this out.

• Your customer’s tax exempt status
• Where you sell and where you ship
• What you sell

After checking the lists, you'll want to consult your 3rd-party provider and see if the "based on location" feature is available on their end. That way, they can help you out in turning off the feature.

However, if your 3rd-party program had a conflict on the customer's address (Where you sell and where you ship), turning off that option is unavailable. You can learn more about calculating sales tax at this link.

I'm also adding our page in case you need help with other taxes task. This will lead you to our general taxes topics with articles.

If you have any other concerns or questions, please don't hesitate to leave a comment below. I'm here to answer them for you. Have an awesome weekend ahead.

Hi QB team,

We are having the same issue here.  We are rolling out to the year end and 3rd party warehouse system imports the invoices but sales tax is not populated in the invoice in QB.

Since our 3rd party warehouse system does not support the "based on location " sales tax but only pass through shopify data to QB, we have to do manual adjustment on each invoices.

This has casued a huge problem right now and we will not be able to close our book on time.

When your team update the system, should't you expect your customer would be in trouble?

If we can not turn off  this feature, what is your suggestion?

Hello, @FLL.

I can provide some information about our sales tax in QuickBooks Online (QBO). 

When using the Automated Sales Tax feature in QuickBooks Online (QBO), the calculation of sales tax amount is based on the state where you have nexus and are registered to collect sales tax, physical address of your business and on the sales forms, the product mapping you've associated with the item you're selling, and the exemption status of your customer. 

I can see the importance of having a feature that'll let you deactivate this based on location sales tax. I'll be sure to take note of it. I'd also recommend you visiting our Blog to learn what new updates and features we have. 

You may consider deactivating the State tax from the Sales Tax Center if you don't want this to calculate based on location. 

Here's how: 

1. Go to Taxes tab and select Sales Tax menu.
2. Proceed to the Sales tax settings. 
3. Click the Edit drop-down of the tax agency and choose Make inactive. 

Here's the use custom rates to manually calculate taxes on invoices or receipts article for more information on how to set up and use custom tax rates in QuickBooks Online.

Keep in touch if you need more help with your sales tax, or if there's anything else I can do for you. I always have your back and am always happy to help. Have a great day!

This does not work I can only make my custom tax rate inactive, the only one I want to use.  I cannot make the based on location inactive, it does not show up???  Even though based on location comes up every time on invoices.  automatically the only things that show up that I can edit are below.  Also our reports to file do not give the correct figure they brake it down per county and double up the tax.  We are having to manually change each entry to our customer tax to make it work.  We have a app that transfers everything automatically to QBO creating the invoices.  Now we have to go into each invoice and manually correct the tax.  Your system does not work you need to delete it. Is there anything I can do?

Hello, suzyallen. 

By default, QuickBooks automatically do the sales tax calculations for you on your invoices and receipts based on location for easy and accurate filings. Since this isn't the case, I propose contacting our Customer support team. There, one of our agents can look into your account and check why you're unable to make the based on location inactive.  

Once everything is settled, you might want to check out our sales tax in QuickBooks Online. Here, you can browse and read some of our resources that can guide you in efficiently running your QuickBooks. 

You're always welcome to leave a reply in this thread if there's anything else you need assistance with sales tax in QuickBooks Online. I'm more than happy to help you out anytime. Keep safe and stay healthy!

This has been a huge issue for us as well. We are a service-based company, and the sales taxes for services are different in our borough than for products. Quickbooks Online is now defaulting to Based On Location Sales taxes when importing sales, or when creating new customers (we have thousands of customers) and we have to change each and every invoice manually. It's currently a huge time sink, which is frustrating, because everything worked perfectly for years until QBO forced this update on us.

I called Customer Service and spent a huge amount of time with them, only for them to verify that there is no way to turn this new "feature" off. We can only turn off our "custom" sales tax rates as a prior commenter verified. Of course, our monthly fees to use QBO just went up (again), at the same time that the software is causing huge issues within our business, so that's a little unfortunate...

Please don't respond with a link to a tutorial on how to use sales tax within QBO. I've been versed in the software for years, and as mentioned above, I already verified with Customer Service that (much to their surprise) this new "feature" cannot be turned off. 

I understand the direction they're trying to go and if it were completely functioning this could be a fantastic feature. I'm sure when this project is complete it will allow us to automate the transfer of data directly into our states collection forms.  That end will be sweet.

Obviously this feature is at best ready for Beta testing. I have been dealing with this since March 2021 and can't believe it hasn't been fixed by now. First spending dozens of hours on the phone with QBO agents who blamed my 3rd party software. Then dozens more hours on with the 3rd party software engineers thinking it was their fault, then dozens more hours on the phone with QBO (where the real blame lands) begging to be heard that the feature needs to be fixed or pulled. Oh and BTW 100s more hours manually fixing individual invoices, ARGH!!!!

I pray they will address this, however after 8 months I'm looking for a creative solution.  Has anyone looked into migrating to a desktop version until this blows over?  I wonder if the feature doesn't exist or is able to be shut off in the desktop version?

Thanks for utilizing the Community space, Daisy John.

I can share information about the automated sales tax in QuickBooks Online(QBO).

The option to turn off the based on location feature is unavailable. Also, we're unable to see if anyone is migrating from QBO to QuickBooks Desktop. You'll need to enable this feature and set up tax items or tax groups when recording sales tax in QuickBooks Desktop.

If you want to migrate from QBO to QBDT, you can export and convert your QBO data to QuickBooks Desktop. I'll show you how.

1. Login to your QuickBooks Online account and click the Gear Icon.
2. Select the Export Data and enter your reason why you're exporting it. Then, click Continue.
3. Review your data from the export overview screen. Once ready, hit Export to Excel.
4. On the Exporting from QuickBooks Online page, choose Continue to Download.
5. Follow the rest of the on-screen instructions to complete the process.

You can now switch to QuickBooks Desktop after everything is finished. I've included this article to walk you through the process of importing your data: Export and convert your QuickBooks Online data to QuickBooks Desktop.

If you no longer need your QuickBooks Online account, check out this resource to learn how to cancel it: Cancel your QuickBooks Online subscription or trial.

Please let me know if you have any additional QuickBooks concerns. We're always here to back you up. Keep safe always.

Please change this to allow us to disable. This is a huge nightmare for us as well!!!!

Joining the thread to help share insights about your sales tax, @bodeanbodean.

As of the moment, there isn't an integrated way to turn off the based on location feature while calculating sales tax for invoices. It is recommended to manually create a custom rate and use it to calculate the sales tax while creating your invoices.

Therefore, I'm adding this article to learn more about manually creating a custom sales tax rate: Use Custom Rates to Calculate Taxes on Invoices or Receipts.

While the said option is not yet available, I'd recommend sharing your request directly with our product developers team by sending feedback. I'll show you how.

1. Go to the Gear icon.
2. Under PROFILE, select Feedback.
3. Enter a few words describing how you wanted to turn off the based on location feature for sales taxes.
4. Select Next.
5. Click Skip and send message.

You may also read this reference so you're able to track the status of your request and also the latest updates released by our developers: Customer Feedback in QuickBooks Online.

It'll always be my pleasure to help if you got questions other than utilizing sales tax for invoices. Use the Reply option below to leave a comment for me to assist you. Take care and stay safe!

Hey @JonpriL 

When you say "As of the moment, there isn't an integrated way to turn off the based on location feature while calculating sales tax for invoices." does this include ways ignore this feature when sending over invoices to QBO from a third party product? We sync invoices that already have a tax code over to QBO and this setting is now overwriting the tax that was set on the invoice in our product. This requires users to update the tax on every invoice after it is synced over to QBO. As you can assume, overwriting the tax on an invoice causes the amount to be wrong, leading to incorrect data in QBO. 

Is there anything that can be sent over in the API call with the invoice to ignore this setting?

Hello there and thanks for joining the thread, @MAS813.

Allow me to give you insights into your sales taxes.

QuickBooks automatically calculates the overall tax rate for each sale using the criteria below:

• The tax-exempt status of your customer
• Where you sell and ship from
• The tax classification of your service or product

The option to turn off the Based on location feature on an invoice is unavailable. I suggest creating a custom sales tax instead.

I'll show you how to set it up:

1. Open the Taxes menu.
2. Click on Sales tax settings.
3. From the Custom rates section, choose Add rate.
4. Click on Single or Combined.

Here's the article for more information on how you can handle custom rates in QuickBooks: Use custom rates to manually calculate taxes on invoices or receipts.

I'm also adding these helpful guides so you can keep track and manage your reports in QBO:

• Run reports in QuickBooks Online
• Customize reports in QuickBooks Online

Feel free to comment back to this thread if you have other concerns with sales taxes or QuickBooks. We got your back as always. Have a great rest of the week!

Right, I have always used custom sales tax rates for my customers. I wasn’t asking how to create one. The issue is that we create dozens of new customers a day, and it now, after the update in August, defaults to “based on location” instead of my custom tax. We used to be able to set a default rate for new customers, but this functionality is now gone for no reason. “Based on location” does not accurately calculate tax for my county, so now my staff has to manually change taxes for each customer, which wastes time. When they forget, I have to open up each invoice and change it when I am reconciling, which sucks. Sales tax used to work fine, and now it is broken for me. Every time I call or report this bug, customer service tells me to create a custom tax, which doesn’t solve the main issue. 

Great Question!

 Iceabenezer is right on!

This "update" is a huge step backwards. I've ben dealing with this since March 2021.  I was told that I was one of the first QBO servers to migrate to this new sales tax system.  I figured they'd realize how huge this was and program a hot fix for it, however it sounds like they are not hearing the cries from the users.  Hearing your story Iceabenzer is discouraging because you hit it in August which means they are continuing to migrate people over to this new sales tax system. I would have thought by now this problem would be so big they would have fixed it however judging from how small this thread has stayed maybe others are figuring out a work around???

SO FRUSTRATING!

Take something that works and break it! things are supposed to get better not worse right?

Every time I call or read a reply on here I get the feeling we're not being heard, or they don't understand, or the worst is the Level 1 phone support has absolutely no power.  I'm not sure how we can reach the people that could truly make a difference on this problem.

The response we all need to see is not: "this is how the tax system works".  The response we need to see is: "the estimated time for the fix to be released is spring of 2022".  What they have now is a huge step backwards. not only does the new system overwrite every imported invoice to based on location, the new "Based on location" function isn't even close to correct.

Thanks for the reply @Mich_S but that doesn't really answer my question unfortunately. I am asking from an integration stand point, we are sending over invoices to QBO with Sales tax(based on a configurable tax code in our product) already on the invoice. QBO is overriding the sales tax that we are sending over with this Based On Location field.

We are looking for a way to send the invoice over and ignore this field and retain the tax that we are sending over to quickbooks instead of quickbooks overriding the correct sales tax with something that is incorrect.

Is there something we can send in the API call to ignore this? 

Good afternoon, @MAS813.

Thank you for getting back to us.

For this one, you'll need to reach out to your third party software. They will obtain more information about sending the invoices and how they will be implemented into QuickBooks. 

Please let us know if you have any questions or concerns. Take care! 

Our 3rd party software is sending the correctly, however Quickbooks randomly changes already established customers whose tax setting have been in Quickbooks for years to "based on location". This causes the tax owed to vary substantially in either direction. This has surprised us and cost us quite a bit in tax dollars owed. There needs to be a way to turn this off. Please revise this stupid option. We have to daily go in to quickbooks and fix these, which cost the company money.

Our 3rd party software has spent time and energy attempting to correct this.  The answer from QBO programmers "there is no solution for this at this time."  This solution is going to have to come from a QBO software engineer. Please anyone that solves this post something in here.  Or if someone knows how to contact Sasan Goodarzi maybe he could make something happen?

Hey @Tori B 

I think you might have missed my post, but we are the third party software that is sending over invoices to QBO. We send it over with sales tax already calculated based on a configurable sales tax code in our software. QBO is overriding this and it is not giving their customers a way to change this. 

QBO is assuming it knows the correct sales tax to apply but in many cases it is inaccurate. Our customers are reaching out to us and asking why QBO is changing the tax which is why I am looking for an update here.

Is there a developer forum that you can point me to where they would have more in depth knowledge about this feature?

1. Change the rates to different rates.
2. Change back to the correct rates.
3. Then, log out of your account and log back in to refresh the system.

1. Log in your QBO account, to enable you to post your question.
2. Choose your QuickBooks product.
3. From the right corner, click "Ask Question."
4. Enter your question on the box. You also have the option to add details with your concern.
5. Click "Ask" to post your question.

Somebody needs to pay attention to this! We are in the same position and I have to think that there are thousands more. I can see how the Based on Location feature would be nice for some businesses (shipping Knick Knacks across the country), but for our service based business it is a nightmare and a complete waste of time. All we want is an option to override Based on Location. If people want to use Based on Location, let them. If we want to set our own rates, let us! I'm hanging in for now, but if there is not a solution in 6 months, I'm out. This is SO frustrating!

I'm pretty sure that you are replying to someone from the third party software who is trying to help their customers, unlike QBO.

Did you even read the post that you are replying to?