in person sales tax rates for delivery

[Florette]

Retail florist in Nebraska here. Prior to last month we had the option to click "tax" on our POS and then select the correct sales tax rate based on where we were delivering our flowers (per NE laws). The only rate that was automatically applied to an in person transaction was my store location tax rate (7%).  Now, the only way to have the other 6 tax rates we use regularly appear on the POS when we click "tax" is to have them "enabled".  This results in all 7 tax rates being automatically applied to a transaction and my team member has to click "tax" to remove the other 6 inapplicable tax rates.  This is highly inefficient and error prone technology, not to mention frustrating for clients who are looking at the screen to complete their purchase and see multiple sales tax rates appear leading to a much higher total than expected before we make the adjustments. I need help from anyone that can understand the illegality, inefficiency and error producing section of the retail, in person POS platform that can assist with explaining this to the programing dept at square? I've been with square POS for 4 years and we used the register system without sales tax issue until about 4 weeks ago. I made no changes to my back office before but have reviewed all categories in the sales tax settings (99% of which apply to online sales) which I don't use having a separate website that doesn't interface with square.  The high majority of my transactions are in person/call in to have flowers delivered in town or to surrounding areas for all occasions and funerals, weddings and such. I really need an efficient, effective work around for this issue. Many thanks.

[Stacelyn24]

Hey there 🌸

Wow, I can see how frustrating that must be—for you, your team, and your customers. Having seven different tax rates auto-apply and then having to peel them back one by one is definitely not the smooth checkout flow anyone wants (especially with Nebraska’s delivery rules in the mix).

From what you described, this change sounds tied to a recent Square update—you’re not alone, a few folks have noticed quirks with how sales tax is being applied at POS lately. Unfortunately, there isn’t a setting that goes “back to the old way” where you could just click and add the right tax on demand.

A couple of possible workarounds while Square sorts this out:

1. Create separate tax-inclusive items for common delivery zones. Example: “Bouquet – In-Town (7%)” vs “Bouquet – County X (5.5%).” Not ideal, but it avoids the “7 taxes at once” mess on screen.

2. Use service charges as a stand-in – Some businesses temporarily use service charges (named “County Tax – 5.5%”) and toggle those instead of sales taxes, so only the applicable one shows up.

3. Contact Square Support and file feedback – The more businesses that flag this, the more likely the product team will prioritize fixing it. It sounds like you already reached out, so definitely keep that case number handy.

You’re totally right about the inefficiency and legality concerns—sales tax handling needs to be clean, especially in industries like florals where deliveries cross multiple zones daily.

Hang in there—you’re definitely not the only one seeing this since the update, and hopefully Square pushes a patch soon 🙏.

[JJ_]

Hi @Florette

Thanks for sharing the details about your tax rate issues.

It appears recent changes to how tax rates are displayed on Square for Retail are causing workflow issues for your team and confusion for customers during checkout.

I wish I could take a closer look at your specific tax configuration and see what options we have to streamline this process. Since I have limited visibility into your account here, I recommend reaching out to our support team. They can review your current setup and work with you to find the most efficient solution to this matter or escalate to the appropriate team so they can shine a light on this situation.

You can reach out here when you have a moment, so they can dive into the details and look into this quickly.