Purpose: The Vertex Interface provides a bridge between CWSerenade and the Vertex Sales Tax system to calculate the tax information on your orders at strategic points, such as:
• order entry
• order maintenance
• pick slip preparation
• billing
CWSerenade communicates with Vertex files to determine the appropriate tax rate at each stage of the order's life cycle. Vertex determines the appropriate tax rate based on the “ship-from” and “ship-to” addresses on the order.
The Vertex Sales Tax system stores the tax rates for each taxing jurisdiction in the United States and Canada, and provides the necessary reporting for each jurisdiction in which you sell or operate.
If you use the Vertex interface, you don't need to keep current with the tax rates and reporting requirements of each taxing jurisdiction, and you no longer have to maintain these rates on CWSerenade. Also, the system does not consider any item tax exemptions set up through Working with Item Tax Exemptions (WITX) or Working with GST Tax Exemption Status (MGTX). Instead, you should use Vertex to set up any tax exemptions for items.
Note: You cannot use both Vertex and tax-inclusive pricing (VAT) in the same company. See Tax Included in Price (E70) for more information on VAT.
Compatibility: CWSerenade version 3.5 or later is compatible with Vertex O Series® 6.0.
For more information: See:
• Vertex Setup for information on setting up CWSerenade to support communication with Vertex. Also, see your Vertex documentation for detailed information on setup requirements within Vertex.
In this topic:
• Tax Calculation Processing Overview
• Tax Overrides, Customer Exemptions, and Item or Class Exceptions
For more information: See Printing the Tax Exception Report (PTER).
Tax Calculation Processing Overview
Overview: The Vertex Interface passes order and tax information between CWSerenade and Vertex at various points in the order cycle (from order entry to billing).
Vertex evaluates and calculates the tax amount on the order at each phase and updates transactions appropriately.
Communication between CWSerenade and Vertex: When CWSerenade needs tax information during order entry or maintenance, pick slip preparation, or billing, it sends a tax request message to Vertex using queues and Web Services. The TAX_INT integration layer job indicates:
• the queues to send and receive tax request and response messages
• the wsdl (Web Services Definition Language) file that controls the integration, including the message mapping and the location of the Vertex application
For troubleshooting purposes, CWSerenade writes the tax request message to the CWSerenade Trace Log, masking the vertex user ID and password passed in the request.
For more information: See Vertex Setup for more information on configuring the integration.
What is taxed? Based on its current data on tax rules for the shipping address on the order and the additional rules that you define for customer or item exceptions, Vertex indicates the tax amounts for merchandise, freight (order-level or line-level), and handling charges. duty, shipper-item charges, and additional freight.
Tax Overrides, Customer Exemptions, and Item or Class Exceptions
Tax override: You can set the Tax override flag in the Order Detail table to Y when you create an order through the generic order API. If this flag is set to Y, Vertex does not calculate the tax amount for the item at any point in the order cycle and just uses the specified tax override amount; however, if there are any line-level freight, handling, or gift wrap charges, these charges may be subject to tax even if the order detail line has a tax override.
Similarly, you can override tax on freight through the order API by specifying a freight_tax_amount and setting the freight_tax_override to Y.
Note:
• There is no way to set the Tax override flag through interactive order entry.
• The system does not set the Tax override flag in the Order Detail table unless there is a tax amount specified in the inbound order message. As a result, you cannot use this setting to create an order line with no tax amount in interactive order entry. The only way to exempt an order line from tax is to set up an item or product class exception in Vertex.
For more information: See the Send Tax to Vertex as Quote Not Invoice (L11) system control value for a discussion on how the system sends different request types to Vertex based on the setting of this system control value and whether the tax is overridden.
Customer tax exemptions: If a customer is flagged as tax exempt in CWSerenade and has a tax-exempt certificate number, the merchandise and charges on the customer’s orders are not taxable. CWSerenade passes the exemption certificate number to Vertex. Although CWSerenade does not pass the customer’s tax exempt expiry date, order entry does not let you create an order flagged as tax-exempt if the customer’s expiry date has passed.
Item or item class exceptions: When you use Vertex, you need to set up item and product class exceptions in Vertex rather than in CWSerenade. For example, if you have two item classes that are not normally taxable, you can map these item classes to product classes in Vertex. See Creating the Product Class under Vertex Setup for more information on mapping this information.
Note: Even if an item on an order is not subject to tax, Vertex still calculates tax for any freight, handling charges, and gift wrap charges if the order is otherwise subject to tax.
