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This article applies to:

  • Product: ONESOURCE Indirect Tax,ONESOURCE Sales and Use Tax Compliance
  • Subject: Import

Place determination hierarchy for Balance Import

You can use various place determination methods to determine the tax area or place to be used as the basis for tax calculations performed on your balance data. Based on the place determination information available on your balance import file, you can choose more than one method. If you make more than one selection, a hierarchy is followed in determining the tax area assignment for a balance import record.
There are 5 methods available for determining the tax area used as the basis for tax calculations:
  • Business Location Codes
  • Place Codes
  • Geographic Names
  • Postal Codes
    • ZIP Code
    • ZIP Code + ZIP Code Extension
  • Tax Area Code
The system's place determination hierarchy uses geographical proxies to derive taxing jurisdictions. The user-defined codes are superior because they map the proxy directly to the tax area. Business Location Code is excellent because you map a known store location to its tax area and there's no place determination logic required past location identification. Place Codes are also excellent because you map a code directly to a tax area.ZIP Code + ZIP Code Extension (ZIP9) has the potential for excellent precision because it largely represents a more exact indicator of the place where the transaction occurred. There isn't a single source of accurate ZIP9s, and since there isn't a single source, the mapping of any particular ZIP9 can differ between source and target systems when exchanging data. Geographic names are accurate under many conditions. There's the potential for names not matching, but that's mitigated with the use of the Geographic Name table whereby names can be mapped to authorities. The loss of accuracy is primarily where a district overlays part of the city-county combination and there's no guarantee the system will hit or miss it correctly.
The hierarchy for place determination is as follows:
  1. If Business Location Code checked - Business Location Code
  2. If Place Codes checked - Place Code
  3. If Postal Codes checked
    1. ZIP Code + ZIP Code Extension
    2. ZIP Code + County Name + City Name + District Name, if county, city, and district names are supplied on record
    3. ZIP Code + County Name + City Name, if county and city names are supplied on record
    4. ZIP Code + District Name, if district name is supplied on record
    5. ZIP Code + City Name, if city name is supplied on record
    6. ZIP Code + County Name, if county name is supplied on record
  4. If Geographic Names checked
    1. County Name + City Name + District Name
    2. City Name + District Name
    3. County Name + District Name
    4. County Name + City Name
    5. District Name
    6. City Name
  5. If Postal Codes checked - ZIP Code
  6. If Geographic Names checked - County Name (renders a unincorporated area tax area within the county)
  7. If System Defaults checked - Tax Area Code
As Balance Import progresses through the place determination hierarchy, once it determines a tax area for a record, it stops and moves on to the next record. Canadian place determination stops once country and state are determined. Country's needed for all levels of the hierarchy and is assumed from the balance import default (United States) if not on the balance import record.