did you have a look at the 'Report' to see what it shows there? Sometimes a tax code means including taxes and if so it will not show the tax in the tax box - but the report will show what the journal entry is and if the tax account is being used.

I agree that having a G or an H is very misleading - the letter E is far better or leaving the tax code column as blank (the tax option here is '-no tax').

Also since you are selling to across Canada then the taxes is determined by the landed destination - not the destination the goods are shipped from. Just wondering why you would have tax code assigned to inventory products?

As for your questions re: new tax code make sure only the Sage main window is open, then just go into Settings, Company, Sales Taxes, then Tax Code.

Create a new code called E with Description being No GST included, No PST included, select 'All Journals'.

Then doubleclick on the letter 'E' and enter the appropriate settings for all taxes which would be Tax column GST/HST Status is exempt, Rate is blank, Included in Price is blank and Is Refundable is blank.

then do the same with the PST in the next row.

Sorry - just rereading and now understanding what you mean - the tax code in inventory is exempt but the customer's tax code is G for the province they are in and when exempt inventory product is inputted into the invoice then the customer's tax code is overriding the inventory tax code even tho there is no tax being charged.

I don't think there is much you can do about that except to physically change the G to E each time.

Maybe someone else will respond with a workaround for this.

Thank you Smithco. Anyone else  or a Sage representative have any thoughts?

Cathy,

The short  and easiest answer is that smithco is correct.  Change the tax code from the default for the customer to what it should be for the specific items.

Contrary to what smithco indicated in her last message, there is no tax code for an inventory or service item, only the concept of whether that item is exempt from a particular tax all the time or not.  If it is marked exempt, no tax code will make it calculate because that is part of the law.  There is no way to easily control whether an item is taxable at GST 5%, HST 5%, HST 13% or even HST 0% for example.  That must be done directly on the invoice to my knowledge.

I haven't tested this concept I am about to mention in about 8 years and your's would be much more complicated than this.  At one point I did setup one tax code to handle if an item at a convenience store should allow GST 5%, PST 8% or PST 12% (might have been 10% for liquor).  With a combination of setting up taxes, combining them all onto a tax code, and then using the exempt status on each item, we were able to make it calculate correctly by setting that tax code up as a default for each customer.  Any item that came across the counter always had the correct tax and I believe we managed to get the tax description appropriate in that client.  However, that might not be easily possible for your circumstances.

For you, if you were to take on this mission, you might need any combination of taxes for GST 0%, GST 5%, HST 0%, HST 5%, HST 13%, HST 14% or HST 15% depending on if you are selling to all provinces and whether the items are exempt or zero rated and if you sell items at 5% as well.  So it may not be as complicated as I make out here.  As I said, I have not tried it with your exact circumstances though I believe it is theoretically possible.  It would take a couple of hours to figure out the right combination of settings and it may not be worth the effort.

An alternative might be to use one of the pop up Additional Info fields for the inventory items and indicate which tax is applicable in that field so the user is made aware each time an item is selected.  I would only do this for items that are always exempt if that is the smallest number of entries for you.

Hi Richard.

Thank you for adding your comments and suggestions. You have given me food for fodder.

I have the same issue Cathy.  Yes, I can change the tax code on every invoice but if it doesn't get changed - it is confusing to the customer as to what they are exactly paying in tax.  I'm perplexed as to why this cannot be improved upon in this program.

I have the same issue Cathy.  Yes, I can change the tax code on every invoice but if it doesn't get changed - it is confusing to the customer as to what they are exactly paying in tax.  I'm perplexed as to why this cannot be improved upon in this program.