Avalara accounts
The Avalara account object and the allowed CRUD operations on the related resource endpoint
Configure your Avalara account to automatically compute tax calculations for the orders of the associated market.
Configuration guide
Avalara AvaTax is a cloud-based solution automating transaction tax calculations and the tax filing process. Avalara provides real-time tax calculation using tax content from more than 12,000 US taxing jurisdictions and over 200 countries, ensuring your transaction tax is calculated based on the most current tax rules.
AvaTax is integrated with Commerce Layer as a tax calculator that connects to one or more markets. Once connected, every order placed in that market is taxed by Avalara in real time.
Connect to AvaTax
In Commerce Layer, AvaTax is added as a tax calculator from the organization's Settings:
Go to Settings › Tax calculators.
Click + New, then select the Avalara tile from the list of integrated tax calculators.
Enter your Avalara AvaTax credentials and click Create.
Account ID
The Avalara account number provided during your AvaTax account activation.
License Key
The Avalara software license key provided during activation.
Company code
The company profile identifier configured in the AvaTax Admin Console.
Record sales invoice on Avalara
When enabled, transactions are posted and committed to the AvaTax Admin Console for record keeping (equivalent to Enable Document Committing / Submission).
Delivered Duty Paid
Enable when the merchant, rather than the customer, is responsible for import duties and taxes on cross-border shipments.
Once created, the credentials cannot be viewed or edited from the Dashboard. To change them, delete the tax calculator and add a new one.
Assign the tax calculator to a market
AvaTax only calculates tax for orders placed in a market that has this tax calculator assigned. Go to Settings › Markets, open a market, click Edit, and select the Avalara tax calculator under Automation.
Assign an AvaTax System Tax Code to a product
Commerce Layer maps individual SKUs to Avalara tax codes through tax categories, managed from the same tax calculator's Tax categories tab. This is the equivalent of assigning a product-level tax code in AvaTax.
To create a new tax category from the Dashboard:
Click + Category.
Enter the SKU code to categorize.
Enter the corresponding AvaTax System Tax Code.
Click Create.
Tax category assignment lives on the tax calculator resource rather than on the product edit screen itself — there is no Tax code field on the SKU edit form in the dashboard.
Tax exemptions and address validation
Commerce Layer does not expose dedicated tax exempt category or validate address controls on the customer record in the Dashboard. Address validation and exemption handling happen as part of the real-time AvaTax calculation call made at checkout for every order in a connected market.
Avalara AvaTax in action
Once a market is connected to the Avalara tax calculator, every order placed in that market shows a real, Avalara-calculated taxes line in its summary — no manual tax entry is required.
In this example order, Avalara calculated $4.57 of tax on a $62.00 taxable amount (product subtotal plus shipping), based on the customer's delivery address and the product's tax category.
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