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Customer Tax Status

Whether a customer's orders are taxed is set in two places, and the two do not offer the same choices. The Add Customer form has it while you are creating the record, and Edit tax details has it afterwards, where the middle setting will not save until you pick an exemption. This covers both, what each setting means, and why the paperwork behind an exemption is your responsibility rather than Tanqory's.

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Most customers are taxed the way your store's tax setup says they should be, and nothing on their record needs touching. The tax setting on a customer exists for the ones who are not: a reseller buying to sell on, an exempt organisation, a customer in a situation your tax rules do not cover.

Getting this wrong is expensive in a way most settings are not. Charge tax to someone who is genuinely exempt and they will ask for it back. Stop charging someone who is not exempt and the difference comes out of your margin, quietly, on every order they place until somebody notices.

There are two places to set it, and which one you use depends only on whether the customer exists yet.

Before you begin

  • You have the paperwork that supports the change, such as a resale or exemption certificate. Tanqory stores the setting, not the evidence, so the record that justifies it has to live somewhere else.
  • You know which of the two situations you are in: creating the customer, or changing one who is already in your store.
  • Your role includes Create customers to set it on the form, or Edit customers to change it afterwards.

Setting it while you create the customer

If you already know the customer is exempt, set it as you create them and the job is finished in one visit. Go to Customers in the admin sidebar, then Add Customer at the top right, and the form opens on its own page.

The Add Customer form in the admin, with the breadcrumb reading Customers then Add Customer. The form runs down the page as Customer information, Marketing, Default address and Metafields, and (1) outlines the Tax settings card near the foot of it, holding a Tax collection dropdown reading Collect tax (opens full size)

Tax settings (1) is the fourth card down the Add Customer form, below Default address and above Metafields, rather than beside the name and email at the top of it. It holds one control, Tax collection, and it opens on Collect tax, so a customer created without touching it is taxed the ordinary way.

The Default address and Tax settings cards on the Add Customer form, with the Tax collection dropdown open. (1) outlines the list it opens, holding Collect tax with a tick beside it, Don't collect tax, and Tax exempt (pending) (opens full size)

Opening Tax collection gives you three choices (1), with a tick against the one currently set.

Choice on the form What it means
Collect tax The customer is taxed the way your store's tax setup says
Don't collect tax No tax is charged on this customer's orders at all
Tax exempt (pending) The customer is recorded as exempt, with the word pending on the status

Nothing is stored until the form itself is saved, so changing your mind here costs nothing. Adding a Customer walks the rest of the form.

Changing it on a customer who already exists

A customer detail page, with the breadcrumb reading Customers then the customer's name. The Customer card sits in the right column holding Contact information, with (1) outlining Show more at its foot and (2) outlining the Edit control at its top right (opens full size)

Open the customer from Customers in the sidebar. The Customer card in the right column is where the status lives, and both controls you need are on it: Show more (1) to read the status, and Edit (2) to change it.

1. Read the current status

The card opens holding Contact information only, so the tax status is not on screen yet.

The Customer card as it appears when the page opens, holding only Contact information with the customer's email, a blurred phone number and the notification language, and Show more at its foot (opens full size)

Select Show more (1) and the card grows to hold Default address, Marketing and Tax details, with Show less in place of the control you pressed.

The same Customer card expanded. Below Contact information it now holds Default address, Marketing with its three consents, and Tax details reading Tax exempt (pending), with Show less at the foot (opens full size)

Tax details reads where the customer stands, for example Tax exempt (pending). That line is a summary of the setting rather than one of the options you choose from, so do not expect to find the same words in the dropdown.

Check it before you open anything. A customer who is already set correctly needs nothing from you, and the commonest reason to open the dialog is to confirm rather than to change.

2. Open Edit tax details

The Customer card on a customer detail page with its Edit menu open. The Edit control sits at the top right of the card and the menu lists Edit contact information, Manage addresses, Edit marketing settings, Edit tax details and Add to company (opens full size)

Open Edit (2) at the top right of the card and choose Edit tax details, the fourth of its five entries. The dialog holds one dropdown and, depending on what you choose, one more field.

This is the only place the status can be changed on an existing customer. The Customers list can show it in a column, but that column only reports it.

3. Choose the setting

The Edit tax details dialog. Tax settings is set to Collect tax unless exemptions apply, and a Select exemptions field marked required sits below it with a Search box. Cancel is available and Save is greyed out (opens full size)

The dialog's own dropdown is headed Tax settings, and its three options are not word for word the three on the creation form.

Setting in the dialog What it means
Collect tax The customer is taxed the way your store's tax setup says. This is the ordinary case
Collect tax unless exemptions apply The customer is taxed except where an exemption you choose applies
Don't collect tax No tax is charged on this customer's orders at all

Leave it on Collect tax unless you have a reason and the paperwork to go with it, because that is the setting that follows your store's tax rules without exception.

The middle option is the one with a condition attached. Choosing it reveals a Select exemptions field, marked required, holding a search box. It searches the exemptions your store has, and it offers nothing when there are none: on a store with no exemptions set up, every term you type returns an empty box with no message, and Save never becomes available.

That is worth knowing before you promise a customer anything. If the search comes back empty whatever you type, the middle setting is not available to you yet, and the choice is between Collect tax and Don't collect tax. This is not a fault to work around. The setting means nothing until an exemption names what is exempt, so the dialog will not store it half finished.

4. Save, and record why elsewhere

Select Save to store the setting, or Cancel to leave the customer as they were.

Then write down why, outside Tanqory. The dialog keeps no note, no certificate and no date, so in a year the record will say a customer is exempt and nothing will say who decided that or on what evidence.

With the setting stored, the customer's orders are taxed according to it from then on, and the Tax details line on their card reflects what you chose. Nothing else on the record changes.

Where the status appears elsewhere

The two places above are where the status is set. There is one more place it can be read.

Manage columns, beside the search box on the Customers list, offers a Tax exempt column. Turning it on is the only way to see the status across your customers rather than one at a time. Until you do, the status is invisible unless you open somebody's record, so it is worth adding as soon as you have more than a couple of exemptions. Search the Customer List covers that control.

What this changes for your store

This setting overrides the tax rules your store applies everywhere else, for one customer. That is its purpose and also its risk: it is a quiet exception that keeps applying to every future order without ever announcing itself.

Leaving a customer on Collect tax is the safe default and needs no defence. The two other settings both mean you have taken a position on that customer's tax status, so treat them as decisions worth a note of their own.

If something goes wrong

  • Save is greyed out. You are on Collect tax unless exemptions apply and no exemption has been picked yet.
  • The exemption search finds nothing, whatever you type. Your store has no exemptions to choose from, so that setting cannot be completed. Use Collect tax or Don't collect tax instead.
  • There is no Tax details line on the card. The Customer card is collapsed. Show more at its foot reveals it.
  • The wording on the card is not in the dropdown. The card summarises the status; the two dropdowns have their own wording, and the one on the creation form differs from the one in the dialog.
  • A customer is still being taxed. Reopen the dialog and confirm the setting saved, since closing the dialog without saving leaves the old status in place.
  • You cannot find where to change it. Seeing it in a list column or a segment is not the same as editing it. Changing it is only on the customer's own record, under Edit, then Edit tax details.
  • The Edit menu is missing. Your role may not include Edit customers. Ask an owner or admin.

Next steps

Still stuck?

More in Customers

  • Customer Tags

    A tag gives a group of customers a name so it is already assembled when you need it. This article covers where tags are set, one record at a time or in bulk from the list, what a tag is actually good for once it exists, and the one thing it will not do, which is answer the search box.

  • Customer Privacy

    Customer privacy is spread across three places in the admin: a settings page for what applies to everybody, the actions on one customer for what one person has asked, and a queue of requests waiting to be approved or rejected. This article maps the settings page row by row and says which of the three you want.

  • Customers Overview

    A map of the Customers area and which article covers each part of it, from the list page and its table to a single record, tags, segments, merging duplicates, store credit, export and privacy requests. The list is covered by two articles rather than one, and this says which takes which half. It also separates the two pairs people most often confuse, views against segments and tags against notes.

  • Bulk Edit Customers

    Bulk Edit opens the customers you ticked as a spreadsheet, one row each, so the same field can be changed across all of them without opening a single record. Five columns show by default and three more can be added, including the marketing consents. Nothing is stored until you select Save, and leaving by any other route discards the lot.

All 49 articles in Customers

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