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Avalara is a tax-compliance software package that integrates with many business applications, including DEAR.


DEAR's integration with Avalara means that DEAR customers can calculate actual taxes of sales going to specified shipping addresses directly from within the system. For tax-exempt customers, sales will also reflect zero taxes paid. It also allows you to sync sales from DEAR and your connected sales channels to Avalara. 


Avalara Integration is currently available for DEAR business users in the US and Canada only. The Avalara Integration page in DEAR will only show up for customers based in these countries.


Avalara Integration can be used with QuickBooks Online, Xero, or with DEAR as a standalone system. 


In addition, there are other considerations that may lead to Avalara integration not being enabled for your organisation, even if it is based in the above-mentioned countries. See Important information for more information.


Users will need the Integration: Avalara Integration (Taxes) permission in order to use this feature. 


Table of Contents


Important information

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To have access to the Avalara Integration page:

  • QuickBooks Online DEAR users with organisations based in the USA must have automated sales tax enabled. 
  • XERO organisations connected with DEAR must not have enabled Avalara integration via Xero. Accounts must be based in US and Canada only. 
  • DEAR standalone users must be based in US and Canada only. 

If Avalara is integrated with DEAR and the B2B portal is connected to DEAR, taxes are calculated on the B2B Checkout page, based on Avalara's data.

In DEAR POS, all taxes will still be calculated based on the DEAR POS Sale Tax or Outlet Sale Tax. DEAR POS does not depend on Avalara integration.


Integrating DEAR with Avalara

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  1. Go to Integrations → Avalara.
  2. On the Avalara Integration page, the Settings tab is open by default. Enter your Avalara Account ID and Licence Key, which you can find on your Avalara Admin page.
  3. Click Connect to Avalara. Avalara requires valid addresses for your Locations in order to connect to DEAR. 


Integration settings

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When Avalara integration is enabled, taxes for DEAR sales are calculated using Avalara API whenever the user clicks on the Authorise button in any tabs.


Syncing orders and transactions to Avalara requires the Report to Tax Authority setting to be enabled.


Avalara company

Select which Avalara company you wish to connect to this DEAR organisation. 


Report to tax authority

Enable this setting for the system to start syncing orders from DEAR or from any activated sales channels to Avalara. Sale order/credit note transactions to Avalara for all sales that have been changed since the last sync with Avalara will be exported. By default, this toggle button will be set to No. Toggling the button to Yes will make an Export sales setting appear for each connected sales channel. 


Export sales from...

Select which of your connected sales channels should send sales and tax information to Avalara.


Validate addresses

This validates your origin addresses, as in where you will be sending goods from. These addresses will be obtained from your Locations. If you have multiple locations listed in this area, the system will check against the addresses set up in each location via Google API. If there are any issues, you will get an error upon clicking this button.


Disconnect from Avalara

Disable the connection between Avalara and DEAR.


Setting up tax codes in Avalara via DEAR

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Once DEAR and Avalara are integrated, you can set up tax codes for your products in DEAR, then upload them to Avalara.


Edit a product's tax code

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You may edit tax codes for individual products via the Avalara Integration page. Avalara provides a Tax Code list for reference. 

  1. Go to Integrations → Avalara.
  2. On the Avalara Integration page, click the Tax Codes tab, where a list of your products with their Product SKUs and Names from DEAR and the Tax Codes from Avalara are displayed. 
  3. By default, Avalara sets tax codes for all products as P0000000 (P followed by seven zeros). You can use the Search box to search by SKU or product name, or you can use the filters at the top to search for products, categories, brands and product tags. 
  4. Once you find the product to be edited, click its tax code and select a tax code from the dropdown menu. You can type into the field to narrow down the dropdown menu options. 
  5. Repeat for as many products as you wish and then Save your changes. 


Tax exemption

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You can recognise customers, customer addresses, and single sales as tax-exempt in Avalara.


Classify a customer as tax-exempt

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If you have tax-exempt customers set up in Avalara, you need to enter the customer Name from DEAR in the customer's exemption record in Avalara, so that all sales in DEAR will reflect the customer's tax-exempt status.

  1. On Avalara, go to Exemptions and create a new or edit an existing customer.
  2. In the Customer Code field, enter the customer name from DEAR. Make sure that the customer name is entered exactly how it appears in DEAR.
  3. Add an exemption for the customer using either the Add an exemption or View Exemptions → Add an exemption button. 


Once you've set up the exemption record, all further sales in DEAR from the tax-exempt customer will have zero tax calculated.

NOTE: If you need assistance in setting up your customer's exemption records in Avalara, you may check out this article in the Avalara Help Center.


Set tax-exempt customer addresses

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DEAR allows you to specify customer addresses as tax-exempt. 

  1. Navigate to Sale → Customers and select a customer. 
  2. On the Addresses tab, select a Tax Exemption Reason Code from the available options. 
  3. Save your changes.

When processing a sale for this customer, if a tax-exempt address is selected as the Shipping Address, the tax exemption reason code will automatically be brought through to the document header. It can be changed or removed at this stage, if necessary. 


Classify a single sale as tax-exempt

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Individual sales can be classified as tax-exempt during the sales process. 

  1. Navigate to Sale → New → Simple Sale/Advanced Sale/Service Sale.
  2. In the document header, select a Tax Exemption Reason Code from the available options. 
  3. Continue with Processing a Sale as usual.


Synchronising DEAR and Avalara

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Sales orders in DEAR can be synchronised with Avalara. Any updates to sales orders in DEAR mean that data in Avalara related to these orders are also updated during the synchronisation process. Sync must be initiated manually, automatic sync is not possible. 

  1. Go to Integrations → Avalara.
  2. On the Avalara Integration page, click the Synchronisation tab. 
  3. On the Synchronisation page, a list of sales tasks that will be or have been synchronised with Avalara is displayed. The status, date, sale order number, and error/comments of each sale task on the list are shown.
  4. You can filter the list by status (Pending, Success, Failed, Skipped or Completed). You can also use the Search box to perform a search by sale number or customer name. 
  5. Once you are satisfied with the list, click Start Synchronisation.


NOTE: Clicking the Refresh button on the Synchronisation page refreshes the list of sales with the latest data from DEAR.



Tax calculation and transaction export

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Tax calculation and export of transactions/sales to Avalara are separate functions.


Taxes for DEAR sales are calculated using Avalara API whenever the user clicks on the Authorise button for a sale quote, order and invoice (credit notes use taxes from the original sale), as long as Avalara is enabled. This does not require any additional synchronisation. 


If the tax rule received from Avalara has not been created in DEAR already, it is created in DEAR.


NOTE: If a standalone credit note is synchronised with Avalara, the billing address from the credit note is used as the shipping address.


Export and synchronisation of orders and transactions to Avalara require the Report to Tax Authority setting to be enabled.


Synchronisation causes authorised invoices in DEAR to create committed sale transactions in Avalara. When the user creates, changes, undoes or voids an invoice in DEAR, the corresponding committed transactions will be created/updated/deleted in Avalara. Committed transactions in Avalara are generated for all authorised invoices in DEAR that have not been uploaded to Avalara or have been edited since the last synchronisation.


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