Calculate Taxes with Sphere Integration

this article outlines how nue seamlessly integrates with sphere, enabling users to achieve accurate tax calculations for quotes, orders, invoices, and credit memos while ensuring compliance it explains the configuration process for this integration in detail with sphere enabled sphere owns tax codes and exemption rules nue calls sphere for taxation on quotes, orders and invoices let's get started! setup sphere integration 1\ setting up the nue billing connector in sphere in order to activate your sphere integration in nue , you will first need to activate a nue integration in sphere this requires two steps a sphere account with the nue billing integration enabled a sphere api key is only generated after turning on the nue integration in sphere sphere does not provide a sandbox mode, so test/production behavior is controlled by which sphere environment the key belongs to for further instructions on how to setup your sphere integration, please follow the sphere documentation https //docs getsphere com/features/integrations/prebuilt connectors/nue integration please save the api key generated by the nue connector in your sphere tenant this will be used in step 2 below initial migration of core products and customers once the nue integration in sphere is enabled, the connector will start a sync of the product catalog as well as all customers here are the parameters all products created in nue should have skus and revenue models populated (sphere only pulls such products) customer records created in nue on salesforce should include a name, account details and shipping addresses populated for further information on how to manage tax exempt customer please refer to this section sphere pulls updates to products and customers on a daily basis (every 24 hours) please note when testing the nue <> sphere integration in sandbox/test environments, the daily sync does not trigger in order to proceed with testing, please note that you will have to do a manual trigger sync in sphere by clicking on the "sync" button within sphere this will enable the following users will see invoices and credit memos generated in nue to be synced to sphere, upon manual trigger sync products and customers can be synced prior to quote and order creation they can be searched in sphere using nue's product sku and customer id additionally, for products and customers not yet synced to sphere, quotes and orders will get generated "on the fly" via the integration if a default tax code is set, then this can be reset for future quotes and orders for that product 2\ enable sphere in nue role permission for sphere integration in nue go to settings → roles in nue and ensure relevant admin roles have the sphere integration permission enabled navigate to settings > integration overview > sphere integration locate the sphere card; it will display as not connected for a fresh tenant click on the wrench to open configuration panel or go directly to settings > sphere you will land on the connect to sphere tax panel, which prompts for the api key and offers test and activate buttons enter and test sphere api key paste the sphere api token into the token field the ui masks the key (e g , sk 6789) so only a portion is visible for identification while keeping it secure click test if the key is invalid, you’ll see an authentication error “integration authentication failed please verify api key ” fix and re‑test until the connection succeeds activate sphere after a successful test, click activate on success, the sphere card status updates to connected/active and nue will start routing tax calls to sphere configure products with tax mode once the sphere and nue connectors are ready and setup, we can now start adding tax information to products in nue this integration is built on ensuring nue only manages the tax mode of each product in nue, all tax codes are handled downstream in sphere let's go through this step by step 1\ open a product in nue go to products in nue open an existing product or create a new one 2\ set tax mode with sphere active, you will see a tax mode field options tax inclusive and tax exclusive this field is required to ensure taxes are calculated on quotes, orders and invoices choose tax inclusive if list prices already include tax (e g , many international/b2c models) tax exclusive if tax should be added on top of list prices (most b2b us use cases) 3\ save product configuration saving ensures that sphere’s connector can pull the product definition and allow tax code assignment on the sphere side 4 setup tax code in sphere if there is no default tax code setup for products in your sphere tenant, ensure that the product syncs over (this happens every 24 hours) once the product is available, you can configure the tax code in sphere by clicking "assign code" configure customers & tax exemption now that we have the integration setup with products, let's ensure new customers have applicable information as well as tax exemption setup mark customers as tax exempt in nue on salesforce for a given customer tax exemption is handled via two methods using the tax exempt picklist (mandatory) this ensures that any customer that is exempt is marked as such via the ui and no tax is calculated in their quotes, orders and invoices additionally, these customers when synced to sphere should also upload their associated tax exemption certificate as detailed in this documentation https //docs getsphere com/features/calculation#tax exemption certificates tax exemption certificates primarily apply to tax exempt us customers using the business idenfitication number (bin) field this is an optional field to be populated for tax exempt non us customers this can also be managed directly in sphere but for customers who want to populate this via nue on salesforce (their billing system) they can do so via utilizing the bin field additional documentation on how to populate this in sphere https //docs getsphere com/features/calculation#cross border b2b software sales how to setup use the tax exempt picklist field in setup > object manager > account > field and relationships > tax exempt custom field values “tax exempt” / “not exempt” disable the “reverse” option so the api names none and exempt are valid and available for tax exemption via the tax exempt picklist field in salesforce behavior with sphere nue sends the tax‑exempt flag to sphere, and for customers marked as exempt, no tax is calculated on their quotes/orders using sphere certificates and evidence as mentioned, customers upload and manage exemption certificates directly in sphere ; nue’s role is to flag the customer as exempt and rely on sphere’s validation and storage for audit once sphere tax is enabled, taxation is enabled in nue transactions are subject to taxations according to the tax codes associated to the products or services involved in the transactions calculate taxes for quotes and orders in an automated tax calculation system like sphere, once a product is associated with a specific tax code in sphere, it means that the product is linked to a predefined tax treatment, such as a particular tax rate or exemption status when a transaction occurs, the tax amount applied to that product will be determined by several factors, including shipping address the tax rate may vary depending on the location of the customer's shipping address different jurisdictions have different tax rates and rules, and the tax calculation will consider the applicable rate based on the customer's location transaction date tax rates can change over time due to legislative updates or other factors therefore, the date of the transaction is considered to ensure that the correct tax rate at that specific time is applied tax code of the product as mentioned, the product's tax code defines how it should be taxed it may have different tax treatments based on its category, usage, or any applicable tax exemptions when users create a quote or an order, they can enter billing address and shipping address in the general informations step the shipping address is the address that will be used for the tax calculation for example after users add products to the quote or order in the line editor step and click quick save, the taxes will be automatically calculated and shown in both the price summary and each line item please note that when the tax mode is exclusive for a product, the total amount is the sum of the total price and the tax amount when the tax mode is inclusive for a product, the total amount is equal to the total price if the quote or order contains both tax exclusive and tax inclusive products, the total amount in the price summary may not be equal to the sum of total price and total amount, due to different tax treatments for various products calculate taxes for invoices and credit memos when an order is activated, invoices and credit memos may be generated upon order activation or in a billing schedule job the billing engine will also calculate taxes according to the tax code, tax mode, invoice date and shipping address of the associated order or customer during the billing process, the following fields on invoice and invoice item, credit memo and credit memo items will be calculated object field description invoice tax amount the total tax amount of all invoice items in the invoice invoice amount without tax the total transaction amounts of all invoice items invoice invoice amount the total invoice amount aggregated from invoice items for tax inclusive products, the invoice amount is the same as the transaction amount for tax exclusive products, the invoice amount includes the transaction amount plus the tax amount invoice item tax amount tha tax amount of the invoice item invoice item transaction amount without tax the taxable amount of the invoice item invoice item transaction amount the total amount of the invoice item the transaction amount includes the taxable amount plus the tax amount