thread Re: sales tax for invoice in Payments Troubleshooting

sales tax for invoice

KPK — Sun, 21 Sep 2025 06:36:31 GMT

Hello, I'm new to Square & I'm still setting up everything. However, I've received an order request and since I have invoice capabilities I decided to create an invoice for my customer. However, the sales tax shows on the invoice but it's not calculated in the total. I've enabled the taxes & I selected the add to option (apologies I can't remember the exact phrase). I know I didn't select the taxes included in price as I presumed that meant I had already added the taxes to the pricing. Of course the square office is closed today so I can't talk to a live person which a bummer because I have several other questions. I appreciate any advice that any of you can share.

Re: sales tax for invoice

JustinC — Mon, 20 Jan 2020 01:08:05 GMT

Hey @KPK - I'd check if your tax is assigned to your items (or custom amount if you haven't uploaded them into your Library yet ) then try to create the invoice.

Steps to modify tax settings are here -

Visit Items > Taxes in your online Square Dashboard or Settings > Taxes in the Square app.
Select the tax rate to update.
From your dashboard, click Apply to Items. From the Square app, select the tax and tap Applicable Items.
Select/deselect which items this tax should be applied to.
Save.

Let me know if this helps!

Re: sales tax for invoice

KPK — Mon, 20 Jan 2020 05:08:51 GMT

Thanks, Justin. But that still didn't work. For one I don't have the option to update taxes. I've tried to create a new tax rule & I've deleted the old tax rule(several times). Nothing is working. I will eventually produce hundreds of items and I really don't want to list each one of them individually in the item library just so that taxes can be added. Isn't there a way I can get the taxes to automatically calculate for any item entered in the invoices & to automatically be added to the dollar total?

Re: sales tax for invoice

JustinC — Tue, 21 Jan 2020 15:15:56 GMT

@KPK - Hmm, taxes will auto calculate as long as you have it enabled for your items. I'd call into Support so they can walk you through creating an invoice with sales tax applied.

squ.re/contact

Re: sales tax for invoice

taylorandjones — Mon, 19 Jun 2023 12:15:38 GMT

Hello @KPK @JustinC Thank you for bringing this issue to light. I'm a website designer that works for Square Online sellers and I also have a Square Online website.

I recently decided to move my consultation services billing to Square Invoices. Today I created my first invoice, adding an hourly (.00 per unit) item with sales tax toggled on, and viewed the auto-calculated line items on the invoice. These are the behaviors and issues that I observe:

1.Sales Tax calculation

The billed item is 3.33 hours at $50/hour = $166.50

Sales tax is 8%

It looks like sales tax was auto-calculated for 3 hours $150 at 8% = $12

And then, .33 (partial hourly unit) was oddly tacked on to sales tax for a total of $12.33

This sales tax line item is incorrect.

Sales tax for $166.50 at 8% should be $13.32

2. Invoice Total

The auto-calculated invoice total is $166.50

The invoice total (with incorrect sales tax) should be $178.83

The actual invoice total (with correct sales tax) should be $179.82

Screenshots have been attached for reference.

I truly appreciate any helpful advice or guidance.

Re: sales tax for invoice

Candlestore — Tue, 20 Jun 2023 16:07:24 GMT

@taylorandjones ;

If you Look on your Invoice Screen Shot it is showing Tax is Included.

On a computer go sign in to your dashboard>Account and Settings>Business Information>Sales Taxes>(Select Essex Sales Tax)

On that tax Scroll to the bottom TAX Calculation Area.... There is a toggle button for Included or Calculated.... If it is Blue then that means you have the Tax Included in your Price , If the Toggle is Grey the amount will be added to your price.

This is most likely why your Subtotal is = to your Total..... Square is thinking the sales tax is included in your Billing price.

If you take the 166.50 -12.33 Sales Tax included this will get you to your Sales price Before Sales tax.

$166.50

- 12.33

-----------

$154.17

Now 154.17 x 1.08 = 166.5036

So Square is Calculating your Sales Tax correctly but you have this sales tax showing as being included in your pricing.

Re: sales tax for invoice

taylorandjones — Tue, 20 Jun 2023 16:46:57 GMT

Many thanks for taking time to provide steps @Candlestore!

Updating/untoggling the Include tax in item price setting in Sales Taxes did the trick 🙂

The invoice now reflects the sales tax as needed.

Cheers!