Installing and setting up CereTax for WooCommerce

Installing the CereTax plugin

Follow the steps below to install the CereTax WooCommerce plugin: 

1. In your WooCommerce admin page, navigate to Plugins > Add New Plugin.

2. On the Plugins page, select Upload.

3. On the plugin upload page, select the .zip file provided to you for the CereTax plugin. After the file is selected, the plugin will be uploaded, installed, and activated.

Configure CereTax

After the CereTax plugin is installed, it needs to be configured. Follow the steps below to configure the CereTax plugin:

1. Navigate to Plugins > Installed Plugins.

2. On the installed plugins page, locate the "CereTax Woo Addon" plugin and select "Settings".

Connect to CereTax

3. Under "Connect to CereTax", complete the following fields:

• ‍API Key: Enter your CereTax API Key for the selected environment.‍
• Environment: Select the CereTax environment you wish to connect to: CERT (Sandbox) or Production.‍
• Profile: Enter the CereTax profile that will be used for your WooCommerce sales.

General Settings

4. Under "General Settings", complete the following fields:

• Enable CereTax: When toggled on, CereTax will be used to calculate tax in the cart and on checkout.
• Post finalized transactions to CereTax: When toggled on, finalized transactions will be sent to CereTax with a status of Posted. If transactions are finalized/posted in another system connected to CereTax, this option should remain unchecked to avoid duplicate postings.‍
• Enable Logging: When toggled on, CereTax requests from WooCommerce to CereTax will be logged.

Address Validation Settings

5. Under "Address Validation Settings", complete the following fields:

• Validate customer and vendor addresses: When toggled on, a "Validate Address" button will display on the checkout page for customers to validate their addresses.
• Validate addresses on every transaction: When toggled on, addresses will be automatically validated in the tax request to CereTax.

Default Settings

6. Under "Default Settings", complete the following fields:

• Business Type: Enter a Business Type that best represents your business. For testing purposes, we recommend selecting 01 (RETAIL).
• Customer Type: Enter a Customer Type that best represents your customers. For testing purposes, we recommend selecting 02 (COMMERCIAL).
• Default PS Code: Enter a PS Code that will be used for any product that is not assigned a PS Code. For testing purposes, we recommend selecting 11010100 (All Taxable).
• Tax Included: When toggled on, CereTax will treat the line amounts sent on each invoice as inclusive of tax and calculate the amount of tax included in the line amount. This should only be toggled on if your store pricing is tax inclusive.

7. After you are done setting up or editing your CereTax settings, select "Save"

After your initial CereTax plugin settings are saved, the CereTax plugin is ready to be used.

Tax Calculation

After CereTax is installed and configured, a test calculation should be done to ensure tax is calculating and displaying as expected. The CereTax plugin calculates tax in two areas of WooCommerce

• Shopping Cart: If a shipping address is available, a tax estimate will be calculated in the Cart and updated when the cart is updated, e.g. quantities change, new products are added, etc.
• Checkout: Tax will be calculated during the checkout process and updated if any details of the buyer's shipping address change.

To validate the CereTax tax calculation is working as expected in the Cart, do the following:

1. Log in as a user on your store

2. Add one or more items to you shopping cart.

3. Open your shopping cart and view the TAX field. The amount should be >$0.

To validate the CereTax tax calculation is working as expected in Checkout, do the following:

1. With one or more items in your Cart, proceed to the Checkout page

2. View the TAX field on the Checkout page. The amount should be > $0.

3. Update the shipping address on the Checkout page to use the address in a different state.

4. View the TAX field on the Checkout page. Validate that the amount is >$0 and different than the amount from Step #2.

In most cases, the Cart and Checkout experience of your site will not look like the screenshots above. However, the taxes calculated by CereTax should display in a field labeled TAX.

Logging

When logging is enabled for the CereTax plugin, CereTax API requests and responses will be logged within WooCommerce. To access CereTax logs, do the following:

1. Navigate to WooCommerce > Status from your site's admin page.

2. Select the "Logs" tab on the Status page.

Two CereTax log files are created each day CereTax is used to calculate tax. All requests and responses from each day will be contained in these files.

• ceretax-api-request: Contains all the API requests made to CereTax
• ceretax-api-response: Contains all the API responses from CereTax

Logging can be turned off under the General Settings section of the CereTax plugin settings, and log files can be deleted from the Status > Logs page as needed.