Sales Tax Randomly not applied to items

[MainGallery404]

We are having a problem with Sales Tax not being applied to items at checkout using Square Terminal.  Even though we have checked the Sales Tax applied to ALL ITEMS, we have been consistently getting items that don't have the sales tax applied at checkout.  We are using Square Terminal through our computer.  This just started about a month or so ago.  I go in and reapply the sales tax to all items, and then it happens again.  Not sure what to do.  Does anyone have any suggestions?  

[_Violet]

Hi @MainGallery404  - I'm sorry to hear that this issue with your Sales Tax has brought you to the Seller Community! 😥

This does sound off, but it's difficult to pinpoint what may be happening without looking at your account and settings with you, which we aren't able to do via the Seller Community. For this type of issue, I suggest that you get in touch with our Support Team. If you haven't already, please reach out to Support directly by logging into your Square account and heading here.

[mplsirishgirl]

I chatted with two different Help Desk people, and they referred me to the phone support. I spent an hour with the phone support person and still no resolution. Has anyone found an answer to this? Thank you!

[mplsirishgirl]

I am having the exact same issue. Spent over 2 hours with tech support, no resolution.

[SNCA]

We have entered hundreds of items in our inventory.  Most items are taxable and were entered as such.  At the point of sale, some of them (not all) are showing as non-taxable.  We have changed them back to taxable, but they still are not correct at the point of sale. Is there a setting we should change? I want to emphasize that it is only some of the items and we have tried to correct it and it still is wrong. 

[DinaLRosenberg]

are you correcting at the individual item level or are you going to:

Home > settings > accounts & settings > business information > sales tax

[Candlestore]

@SNCA ;

After updating your Tax settings at the point of Sale, Log out of the app, then Log Back in. 

The reasoning behind this is when the app looks at the data of items at Square it holds the data in memory.  When Changes are made through the Dashboard or through another Point of Sale Device they all do not see these changes instantly.  I think Square has a setting that we cannot change that checks the Catalog or Settings every 15 min (For Example).  So to force the POS to check for Updates in settings erc I have either looked in my Items without logging out or Logging completely out then I can see the change that was not there when I just checked.  

Examples:

I add a new item in my Square Dashboard.

Goto my Square Stand and Scan the Item I just added through my Dashboard.... I get Item Not Found.

Ignore and then press More - Items search for any item I know I have.  Go back to Checkout tab and scan the Item that was not found and bam it is there.... I did not change any thing or try to add it again.   If I add the Item on Stand 1, and try scanning Item on Stand 2,  Item not Found.... do the above to get to my Items and then scan it on Stand 2 and it is there.  

I am not sure what you would have to click to make Square Update Tax Settings or if doing this for your catalog would work.  This is the only reason I am saying to exit the app then Log back into the App, maybe this will Update all your settings from the Dashboard and other devices you made the changes on.

[Candlestore]

@mplsirishgirl ;

I am not sure what all you tried but maybe try exporting your Square catalog and in excel or google sheets fill the last Column Tax with a Y for all Items.... then just remove or change Tax to N for items with No tax this is faster for a few items with no tax than trying to make the changes in the Square Dashboard for every item.  Then Up load it to Square.  After you do this log in and out of your POS devices to hopefully force the device to get the New catalog changes. 

[MainGallery404 · Accepted solution]

Yes, we did find an answer.  There is a switch to toggle on and off for Custom Amounts.  It needs to be turned on.  You find it under:  Accounts and settings/Business Information/Sales Taxes/Edit Tax at the bottom of the box called "Tax Application" (where you can set tax to apply to all or just select items).  Hope this helps!

[Andy212FL]

I'm not finding a box called "Tax Application". Am I doing this on the Dashboard or on the Retail Point of Sale App on my iPad? 

[MainGallery404]

We used the desktop.  Follow the directions until you get to the screen for Sales Taxes.  Then click on your state's sales tax (under "Tax Name") , and a screen to "Edit Tax" will come up.  Tax Application is at the bottom of the screen.  Make sure the box "apply tax to custom amounts" is toggled on.

Hope this helps

[Andy212FL]

Yeah that is what I did but it still doesn't apply taxes to items I currently have in my inventory list. I ended up just editing the items to add Sales Tax. It is very time consuming. I don't know if it is a glitch on my end that it won't add taxes automatically when I turn it back on. 

[Andy212FL]

Going through this exact issue now and Support is passing me around and no one has a quick fix. What did you end up doing? 

[RobynR]

Hey @Andy212FL, please check out the Best Answer above.

I hope this helps.

[kkirk]

I just started using Square in March but I have randomly had some things not ring up with tax. I go in to my sales tax (I live by 2 states so we have 2 tax rates depending on what state we do our work in) and some items will be unchecked for tax. I am the only one with access so I know it's not some other employee doing it. But the weird thing is that the items that are unchecked on the IL tax are also unchecked on the IA tax. It's happened maybe 3 or 4 times since March that a few items just randomly start ringing up with no tax. I don't have time to check everyday to make sure all items are taxed that should be!
Also, I can't just check "all items" to have tax because we have about 4-5 items that are either no tax or only have tax for 1 of the 2 states we work in. So checking the "all" box does not work for my situation. But if I check the tax box on lets say 50 out of 60 items that we have, I shouldn't have to worry that 5 of those 50 randomly become unchecked.