Taxcloud stopped working

Hi,

5pm CST is midnight here and we're not working at that time until the next day so it will be problematic to do our tests after that time today or another day.

However, that's great that you could provide the error message.
I was able to understand what's going on.
Here is a new zip with the taxcloud.php file with a fix for that error.
With that fix, it should now work just fine if you replace the file and do your test right after that.

The patch appears to work without errors. Thank you. I also tried the debug mode in the new file and just received the message "ok" - I assume that means the plugin is connecting successfully to taxcloud?

I logged in to taxcloud a few minutes after making a few test orders. I did not see them under transactions (either as captured or lookups). Do you know if it takes some time for them to show up? (I'm using prev.taxcloud.com - the newest version date range selection doesn't seem to work)

The authorizations came through a few mins after my last post. Looks like things are working. I'll follow up with any other issues. Thank you again.

Hi,

Thank you for taking the time to provide feedback on the solution. We'll include these modifications in the next version of HikaShop so that when you update, it will work without having you to do anything.

Do you know if this change would affect how tax is being calculated in checkout with taxcloud?

Before this change products with TIC code 10005 did not calculate tax in the checkout (correct behavior). Now tax is being calculated and added in.

Please advise.

Hi,

No, the calculations won't change. The patch I added only replace the indexes to be incremental for each order, instead of using the cart_product_id which increases for each product added by someone in his cart, in order to avoid reaching the maximum possible value for TaxCloud for the index. It doesn't touch anything else.

So regarding the specifics of whether a TIC should be taxable or not, I would first recommend to check with the TaxCloud support to see if the case you're in should indeed be taxed or not. Then, if there is really a problem with the plugin we can have a look at the specifics (address of the customer, TIC, settings of the plugin, etc) in order to identify the cause and see what can be done.

There was no tax being calculated on the items we had marked with the TIC mentioned previously (VISA Gift Cards). It is only recently that they are now calculating tax. No changes have been made to the TIC code or tax settings. The only recent change that I am aware of is the plugin patch.

The TIC we are using is for Gift Cards
prev.taxcloud.com/tic/

For reference, Gift Cards (TIC 10005) are stored value instruments, not taxable in any state. Something must be interfering with the TIC being passed in correctly.

Hi,

Then please provide precise instructions to reproduce the issue on your website and if the backend / FTP access you provided before on this thread don't work anymore please provide new ones so that we can check your settings and see if anything needs debugging.

I have sent the access info via your contact form. Please let me know if anything else is needed.

Not sure if it is related, but today I am getting reports of tax being calculated on the shipping cost. This wasn't happening before.

Hello,

I know that Nicolas handled your email for the credentials but I don't see any comment for any modification in the plugin or in your website.

Regards,

It looks like the tax is no longer calculating in checkout. However, recent orders still went through to taxcloud as TIC 000000 (default in the taxcloud plugin) and ended up having tax calculated on that end.

Please see attached image.

This is a big issue that is causing hours of administrative correction. The cost to keep up with this is growing. You help in resolving this quickly is appreciated.

Also, taxcloud if you are monitoring this I have a ticket open on your zendesk system. We need help removing this tax from the transactions on your end.

Thank you,
Dustin

Got it - will take a look over the weekend.
Thanks for the heads-up.

Hi,

Sorry for the delay, I was on holidays last week and I just came back today.
I went on to follow the steps you provided with your test account, but I wasn't able to reproduce the problem.
I didn't get any tax for that gift card product nor for the shipping method:
monosnap.com/file/7InAEp0xdiWkRINosF2wbY80jlfWwC
I also tried to finish an order but no tax was added either, as expected.
So I couldn't do anything since I wasn't able to reproduce the problem.
Coudl you double check the instructions you provided and check that you still have the problem ?

Thank you for checking. As mentioned in my last post, the tax no longer is appearing in the checkout. That somehow resolved itself. The issue we are experiencing now is all transactions are going through to taxcloud as TIC 000000. This includes products marked with TIC 10005 (which is a gift card that should not have tax calculated). So, if a transaction goes through for a $100 gift card you don't see the tax in hikashop, but rather it is added as a tax liability on the taxcloud side.

Looks like you still have an active taxcloud login for our account.

Recent orders where this has occurred:

2716
2739
2741
2740
2744

Hi,

Sorry I hadn't understood that from reading your previous message.

I was able to reproduce the problem and add a fix for that, which was unrelated to the other issue you had.
This was caused by the tic not being available in the variable where the plugin was looking at in some cases since HikaShop 3.0.0.
I've tested it on your website and it seems the patch works fine now. I've also added the patch on our end for the next release of HikaShop.

These orders have been adjusted to use TIC for gift cards (TIC 10005) and actual cost shipping (TIC 11010), causing the tax amount to be zero.

Thank you, Nicolas, for the patch and thank you, Taxcloud, for the order updates.

There are a couple more VISA card transactions that need to have the tax removed:
2749 for $10,760 ($591.80 in tax needs to be removed)
2747 for $110 ($6.05 in tax needs to be removed)

Additional questions/issues:

1) When does the status in Taxcloud for an order update from authorized to captured? It seems to be when an order is updated to 'payment confirmed' or 'shipped' in Hikashop. Is this correct?

2) There still seems to be a shipping tax charge coming through on some orders. A recent one is Order# 2769. On this one there were 2 lines for shipping. Both were marked 10010, but one ended up having $.56 in tax being collected (see attached). Any ides why this occurred? This amount will need to be removed.

3) For the transactions that were missed, we manually entered them in (from May - July orders 2600 -2708). How is this going to affect our reports and liability in Taxcloud? Will it all roll into August or do we need to regenerate the previous months?

4) We still need to update/add orders 2599 - 2522 to be captured (that are all 'payment confirmed' or 'shipped' in Hikashop - but not 'captured' in Taxcloud). The reason we have been entering them manually is that the order numbers in Taxcloud for authorizations do not seem to match the order numbers in Hikashop until after the order captures. Also, the totals are incorrect (see below) so finding them is difficult. Is there a way of finding the matching authorized transaction and capturing these so we don't have to manually enter the rest?

4) $1 authorizations. In Taxcloud there are charges for $1 that appear in authorizations (tic_rate_0 00000 $ 1.00) that seem to drop off once captured. Is this correct?

Thank you,
Dustin

Hi,

1. When the order is created a lookup request is made to TaxCloud in order to have the orderID / cartID registered with TaxCloud.
When the order is confirmed (so after the payment), a AuthorizedWithCapture request is sent to TaxCloud with that orderID / cartID so that the order can be validated.

2. I wouldn't be able to say. If the TIC is correct at 10010 then it's TaxCloud which calculates the tax amount to be paid and HikaShop only applies it. I suppose Taxcloud support will be able to say more on this.

3. 4. 5. I suppose Taxcloud support will be able to say more on this. You know better than me the merchant interface of TaxCloud so I can't say.