Sales Tax Liability Report

I can help you check your reports today, @jjjmurphy3.

We can pull up and customize the Sales by Product/Service Detail or Sales by Customer Detail report. These reports will also show the list of all sales with all other tax information, o you can get the details you need. Let me show you how.

1. Go to the Reports menu and find "Sales by Product/Service Detail" or "Sales by Customer Detail" from the list or in the finder.
2. On the report, update the Report period and Accounting Method.
3. Tap the little gear on the report and mark the Taxable box and all other tax filters there.
4. On the same page click Class.
5. If you're using classes to identify which state those sales are processed, use the Customize button.
6. Go to Filter then mark the Class filter.
7. Once done, press Run Report.

On the report, you will notice that non-taxable items are blank in the Taxable column. Also, different classes assigned to transactions will appear there. 

Here are some related links that will help you run reports in QBO:

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

You can as well read these articles as your guide while managing sales taxes in QBO:

• Sales tax in QuickBooks Online
• Set up your sales tax

Please let me know how it goes by leaving a comment below. I'll be around to help if you have any other questions about running reports or any QuickBooks related. Take care and have a good one.

I have the same problem. And I don't understand why QBO online changed the sale Tax system!! I am very upset!! I CANNOT do my sale tax for the last quarter!!

And I cannot get the Sales by Customer Detail!! I have Sales by Customer Summary but not all the options as shown in your screenshot

Thanks

Thanks for joining here today, @Frenchefusa.

Let me share some information about the reports. The screenshot that my colleague has shared is for the Sales by Product/Service Detail report. If you're looking to view the taxable amounts, you can use either the Taxable Sales Detail or the Taxable Sales Summary report. From there, filter the report to view the taxability and taxable amounts. Let me guide you how:

1. Go to Reports.
2. In the Find report by name field, type Taxable Sales Summary (or Taxable Sales Detail).
3. Tap the Customize button at the top.
4. Select the Filter drop-down, the Customer Taxable box.
5. Choose Taxable to view taxable customers and the Total amount. Then, Non-Taxable for non-taxable customers.
6. Click Run report.

With the above steps, you're able to see your last quarter's total taxable amount. Learn more about the other sales tax report in this article: Reports included in your QuickBooks Online subscription.

Additionally, feel free to browse this link here for topics related to taxes.

Keep me posted if you still have questions or concerns. I'm always here for you. Take care and have a good one.

Where can we put in a request that the Sales Tax Liability report needs to show True Gross Sales, Taxable Sales and Tax Amount?  It currently only shows the Taxable Sales amount.  This is not okay.  I shouldn't have to run 2 separate reports to determine "Total Sales" for previous month, then Taxable Sales for previous month.  Please put them altogether like the Desktop version.  

Thanks for joining us here in the Community, @cswenson.

I can see the convenience of being able to pull up a single Sales Tax Liability report that contains True Gross Sales, Taxable Sales, and Tax Amount. 

However, you can send this preference to our developers so this will be taken into consideration.

To do that:

1. Click on the Gear icon.
2. Select in Feedback.
3. Key in your feedback.

For now, to get your work done, you can export separate reports to Excel and create a single report from there. To give you more insights about customizing your reports in the system together with exporting them, please see these resources:

• Learn how to get the most out of your financial reports
• Export reports, lists, and other data from QuickBooks Online

To add up, know that we find ways to cope with your business's needs. I'd encourage you to visit our QuickBooks Online Blog site to be updated with our latest releases and road-maps.

I'm always here to help if there's anything else that I can assist you with. Just leave a reply below. Keep safe!

I'm so frustrated by this, it is now October that the Gross sales in the Sales Tax Liability Report is still not accurate.  I have spent 5 different calls with QBO trying to figure out if I was doing something wrong.  I finally got on here and see others are having this problem.  I told the last agent I wanted a credit for my QBO bill since their service is not working correctly.  Of course, they can't do that.  If we as biz owners sell a flawed product, we have to fix it and don't get paid, but QBO is just big enough they can tell us to pound sand and we all just have to take it.

Hi there, RLPLLCWLG.

I'll explain how gross sales are reported in the Sales Tax Liability report and provide a workaround, given that this is a limitation on the said report.

The gross sales in the Sales Tax Liability report are only from those transactions with a taxable item. I understand why you feel frustrated because you need to report the gross sales (total taxable + non-taxable) to the tax agency per jurisdiction (state, city, county, etc.).

I see that @JoesemM has shared a couple of "detail" reports, but I would rather recommend the  Sales by Customer Summary since we only need the gross sales amount. You can export it to Excel and cross-reference it with the Sales Tax Liability and Customer Contact List reports. That way, you can determine and group the customers in the same state, city, or county to get the total sales in the said jurisdictions.

Lastly, I would encourage you to contact our QBO Support again if you have time. That way, they can do further investigation on this, because it has to be from a reporting company/user. You can also submit feedback by clicking on the Gear icon and choosing Feedback.

I know that taxation is a very important matter in the business, so if you have other questions about it, feel free to go back to this thread. We're just around to help you always.

I recently started working for a new client. He has been using QBO for several years, set it up himself, and recently hired me to do the bookkeeping as his business has grown. As I was familiarizing myself with his company, I started noticing a disconnect between the Gross Sales balances on the Tax Liability Report and the P&L. All of my other QBO clients are non-profits so sales tax has never been a concern before now on QBO. My other clients, who do pay sales tax, use QB Desktop - so I am very familiar with the Sales Tax Liability reporting via QB Desktop. The Sales Tax Liability Report in QB Desktop reports Gross Sales as the total of all sales items and that gross total is then broken down into the portion that is non-taxable and taxable sales. I can foot the gross total reported on the Sales Tax Liability report to the Gross Sales on the P&L

When I first noticed the disconnect in my new client's reports, my initial thought was he set something up incorrectly. So, after looking around and not finding any issues, I contacted QBO Support to see if I was missing something. No, they assured me everything was set up properly. That's when I started researching online. I've watched several QBO videos on set-up, running, reporting and filing sales tax with QBO. I have read several articles and ultimately found this thread. To say the least, I am concerned.

To be clear... If I create an invoice for a taxable customer with two items. One for $100 that is taxable and one for $50 that is not taxable (which is a common scenario for my client). While the Gross Sales of that invoice totals $150, the Sales Tax Liability report is only showing Gross Sales as $100 - the amount of the taxable item(s). The Taxable Sales balance is correctly $100 and the non-taxable sales balance is.....$00000. I have clients in more than one state. The ones who report Sales Tax (as I mentioned they all us desktop) all are required to report TOTAL GROSS SALES (taxable and non-taxable) and  the Total Taxable Sales amount that comprise the TOTAL GROSS SALES balance. I have yet to encounter a situation in which the state only wants the gross of taxable sales (I'm not saying that is not the case, just that is not my experience) 

No where in all my inquiry and search was there any information to indicate that the Gross Sales reported on the Sales Tax Liability report only reflects the total of the taxable items and does not include the balance of non-taxable sales that occurred during that period. In fact, time and again, the communication was that the QBO Sales Tax functionality, including the Sales Tax Liability report, was all that was needed for QBO users to accurately file their sales tax returns. Based on this thread, it is apparent my client is not the only one that is required to report TOTAL GROSS SALES when filing their sales tax returns.

By the way, my client -  the one who set things up correctly, watched QB videos and has been using the QBO Sales Tax Liability Report for years to file his Sales Tax Returns. The one who understood from Intuits' literature  that he could rely on the information on that Sales Tax Liability report to confidently file his taxes - that client I  now have to tell him that in fact, he cannot rely on that Sales Tax Liability report to file his taxes and that, he has been incorrectly reporting the GROSS TOTAL sales balance to the state for the last several years. I'm really sure that's going to go over well. If Intuit is not of a mindset to remedy this issue, perhaps they could at least make it clear what those numbers reported on the Sales Tax Liability Report actually represent so that those folks who have to report TOTAL GROSS SALES know not to rely on QBO's functionality to file their sales taxes. Thanks.

Thanks for joining us, @AnitaSD.

I know how imperative it is to file a sales tax. You'll want to make sure you mark the tax box on both non-taxable and taxable items when creating invoices. This way, the non-taxable items will be posted in the sales tax liability report. 

Here's how it should looks like:

Please note that the sales tax liability report is driven by the sales tax category on the item itself. In that sense, you can trust the gross the sales amount of the Profit and Loss to be the accurate total gross sales.

For additional tax reference, please check out this link. It has topics, videos, and articles to guide you along: Manage taxes in QuickBooks Online.

Please know that you're always welcome to reply anytime if you have follow-up questions or concerns with sales taxes. I'll be around to help. Take care and have a good one.

Thank you for the reply. So if the process is to check the tax box whether or not the item is taxable - when should the tax box not be checked? 

I am assuming the following if the tax box is checked 

1) If the customer record indicated the customer is tax exempt, the invoice will not calculate any tax even if the tax box is checked

2) Since we do not pay sales tax on sales to customers outside of our state, I am assuming if the customer's billing/shipping address is not in our state the invoice will not calculate any tax even if the tax box is checked?

Are those correct assumptions? For some reason this has become very confusing.

Hi there, AnitaSD.

QuickBooks will automatically mark the tax box once the product you sell in taxable. Also, tax-exempt rules are not the same everywhere, QuickBooks will sometimes need to calculate sales tax for tax-exempt customers. 

You just need to map items to their proper tax categories and make sure the customer's address is correct on each transaction. QuickBooks will then follow the correct tax-exempt rules based on what you sell and your customer's address.

Check out these articles for additional information about categorizing your products and services.

• Map your items to their proper tax categories
• What items need tax categories and why.

In addition to this, QuickBooks automatically calculates the total tax rate for each sale based on the following:

• Your customer's tax-exempt status
• Where you sell and where you ship
• What you sell.

You can refer to this guide to learn more about the calculation: How QuickBooks calculates the correct tax rate on each sale.

If you're seeing that everything is set up correctly but sales taxes are incorrect, you can report this by contacting our QuickBooks Live Team. A representative will escalate the issue and forward it to our Sales Tax Research Team.

Also, to ensure you  file on time and avoid extra fees, you can browse this article for the workflow: How to set products and services and get started with the sales tax.

Keep me posted if you have additional questions. I'll be right here to answer whenever you have follow-up questions about the sales tax in QuickBooks Online.

Hello and Thanks for your Reply

I have run three scenarios - all for the same customer (taxable), all for the same non-taxable item, all for the same amount, etc. The only difference in each scenario was whether or not the taxable box was checked and/or the Sales Tax Rate selected on the invoice. For each scenario, I would expect the invoice total to be included in the Gross Total of the Sales Tax Liability Report and the Non-Taxable balance. That is not, the case, however. In one scenario, the invoice amount was not included at all in the Sales Tax Liability Report. For another, tax was actually assessed (for a non-taxable item), only one seemed to provide the expected result. If a product/item is non-taxable, I would expect it to be treated the same way on the Sales Tax Liability Report - regardless as to whether or not the Taxable Box is checked and regardless of the tax rate selected. I am attaching information and screen prints for each of these scenarios for you to review. I understand that each state handles sales tax differently and there are nuances here and there. But I would expect a non-taxable transaction repeated for the same customer/product to be handled the same way regardless of the Sales Tax Rate employed or whether or not the Taxable Box is checked. This makes no sense. 

I appreciate you getting back to us and sharing your thoughts, @AnitaSD

We recognize how this feature is beneficial to you and your business. However, as provided by my colleague above, the tax box automatically marks the product you sell as taxable once you sell it.

As we value your suggestions, I recommend sending your feedback to our Product Development Team. This way, they can review your suggestions and might make some adjustments for future updates.

Here’s how:

1. Go to the Gear icon.
2. Select Feedback.
3. Enter a brief description of your product suggestion and click Next.
4. Type your email address.
5. Once done, click Send Message.

Also, feel free to visit our Feedback forum page to see a list of other QuickBooks users who have already suggested this feature, as well as the recent updates in QuickBooks.

In the meantime, you can read through these handy articles that can guide you through managing your sales taxes in QBO: 

• Sales tax in QuickBooks Online
• Set up your sales tax

Keep me posted if you still have questions or concerns with sales taxes. I'll be around for you. Keep safe always!

So, you are saying that the Sales Tax Reports are inaccurate by design.

There is no expectation that they will become accurate in the future.

The user must run multiple reports to get the information needed to file their state's sales tax returns.

There is no reasonable way to verify that the total sales, taxable sales and non-taxable sales are all included correctly, other than to line item identify and add them up ourselves.

And QB Desktop does this easily on a single Sales Tax Liability report.

Did I miss anything cogent?

I have a client fighting this battle the last 2 months when QBO automatically "upgraded" him to the new sales tax system.

this sucks.

I wish we had stayed with desktop

A workaround?

How about I reach around your monitor and slap you upside your head?

Relying on a software supplier to help us run our businesses efficiently, yet you cannot duplicate what was so easily performed in the desktop program.

Intuit or other users- any progress here?

This is ridiculous. How can you provide bookkeeping software that does not generate an accurate Sales Tax Liability report? We should not have to use a workaround and cross reference cells in an exported spreadsheet. That method lends itself to human error. We pay you for a software solution so we don't have human error. What is the problem? Give us the report like it is in Quickbooks Desktop.

I thought this was fixed a few months ago.

Have been filing 1 sales tax return for a client selling into all 50 states. Are the reports still wrong?

I agree.  How is this they don't have a Sales tax liability report that contains all the information you need to file your sales tax?  It's like they don't know how a business is run?  Crazy.  So far hating the Online verse the desktop.

Hello there, @HeatherCole. I understand the importance of getting this report to file taxes.

I'm here to help you run the Sales Tax Liability report with the information you need to file taxes.

Here's how:
 

1. Go to Taxes.
2. Click Sales Tax.
3. Scroll down and hit the drop-down arrow beside Reports.
4. Choose Tax Liability Report.

I'll be sharing this article for further steps on how to add other specific details to your reports: Customize reports in QuickBooks Online.

Furthermore, I've added this reference to guide you in tracking tax payments and filing your sales taxes to avoid late returns and extra fees: File your sales tax return and record sales tax payments in QuickBooks Online.

Let us know in the comments below if you have additional questions about running reports. We'll always be available whenever you need help. Have a good one!