Sales Tax

If you are required to collect sales tax on your services or any other invoiced items, you can set tax rates in Time To Pet that will automatically be applied to taxable items on your invoices.

Setting Tax Rates

How you set up your tax rates will depend on whether or not you have your Time To Pet account connected to QuickBooks Online.

Connected to QuickBooks

If your account is connected to Quickbooks, you’ll need to first add your tax rate(s) to your QuickBooks account. Once your tax rates are set in QuickBooks, go to Company Settings > General in your Time To Pet account and click on the “Reload Tax Rates From QuickBooks” option.

Reload Tax Rates From QuickBooks

Not Connected To QuickBooks

If your account is not connected to QuickBooks, you can simply add your tax rate(s) in Company Settings > General by clicking the “New Tax Rate” button. Remember to save changes after adding your tax rate(s).

Adding A New Tax Rate

When adding tax rates in Company Settings > General, you’ll need to select one of the default tax rates. This tax rate will be applied to all client’s accounts by default, but if you have different tax rates for different areas, you can set tax rates for individual clients in the “Services/Invoices” tab of their accounts.

Setting A Client's Tax Rate

Making Services & Items Taxable

Tax is only applied to invoice line items that you have set to be taxable. To make a service taxable, edit it in your Services List and check the “Service Is Taxable” box.

Service Is Taxable

When adding custom line items to an invoice, you can select whether the item is taxable or not in the “Tax?” column.

Making A Custom Line Item Taxable

Applying Tax To Existing Invoices

Changes made to tax rates in Company Settings or an individual client's account will impact all future invoices generated after the modification. However, it's important to note that these changes won't automatically apply to existing invoices. The same principle applies to alterations in the taxability status of a service within the Services List – such modifications will not retroactively affect services listed on existing invoices.

In cases where pre-existing invoices require tax application or modification, the first step is to make sure the line items on the events are taxable. After making a service taxable in your Services List, there are two methods to update pre-existing events on invoices. The first option is to use the Bulk Update tool to Refresh Rates on the events, thereby updating all events to be set as taxable. Keep in mind this method will update the service rates as well. Alternatively, you can manually review each line item on an invoice and designate it as taxable, which will prevent any changes to the invoiced rates.

Once you've confirmed the invoiced events are set to be taxable, navigate to the Edit Invoice screen and adjust the Tax Rate, which will apply the tax rate to the taxable line items.

Applying Tax To Existing Invoice

Removing Tax on Services & Invoices

If you have services where tax is not applicable, you edit the service type through your Services List. In the setup tab for the service and under "Rates", you would leave the box with "Service is Taxbable" unchecked.

Rates section of a service configuration with the taxable option outlined in red

Note: If a service was previously taxable and this setting is changed, existing invoices will not update automatically. To update existing invoices, use Bulk Update > Bulk Refresh Rates to update those invoices.

If there are individual line items on a client's invoice that will not be taxed, the tax can be removed by opening the invoice and adjusting the "Tax" column for the line item. After changing this to "No" be sure to click the save icon (this looks like a floppy disk) to finalize the edit.

Invoice view with line item options opened and arrow pointing to tax column and save icon circled

To remove tax for an entire invoice, scroll to the section where the invoice totals, discounts, and tax is listed. Where "Tax Rate" is listed, use the drop-down menu to adjust the tax rate to "None".

invoice screen with section for Tax Rate circled and shown as

More Information on Updating Tax Rates

Although rare, sometimes Tax Rate(s) change, and invoices need to be updated. When the tax rate was added and when the invoice was created will determine how the Tax Rate(s) are updated on invoices.

Invoices Created Before Tax Rates Were Added

If invoices were created before any tax rates were added, the tax rate on each invoice would need to be individually adjusted. To do this, open each invoice and update the tax rate at the bottom of the invoice. Going forward, any invoices created after enabling the new tax rate would have the tax rate automatically added.

Invoices Created, Same Tax Rate Needs to be Updated

If a tax rate was set, invoices generated while that rate was set, and that same tax rate has changed and needs updating; those can be Bulk Updated. To update the tax rate in bulk, use Bulk Update > Bulk Refresh Rates button. This only works when editing the same Tax Rate. See below for example, clients who have invoices using "Tax Rate 1 - City Name Residents" need that updated from 5% to 7% when "City Name" changed their tax rate. This can be done by editing the "Tax Rate 1 - City Name Residents" rate and then using Bulk Update to refresh their invoices:

Generals Settings - Tax rate section with two tax rates configured

Invoices Were Created Using A Different Tax Rate, Need to Update to a Separate New Tax Rate

Bulk Update will not work if clients with "Tax Rate 1 - City Name Residents" need to be updated to "Tax Rate 2 - Second City Name Residents" - this would need to be manually updated by opening each invoice and updating the tax rate on each invoice that was created prior to adding the new tax rate.