A warning: NO TAX OVERRIDE if you have a Physical Nexus - TAX settings in Shopify are a problem

[cfc_webmaster]

I am putting this here for SEO purposes so anyone looking to do a Shopify integration can find this information quickly and easily after doing some searches. 

Until you see a REAL SOLUTION here in this chain and in Shopify under Settings->Taxes called "Override all taxes" then do not onboards 1000's of products... or... be aware of what you are about to get into.

First, lets layout who this applies to:

1. You have a physical nexus in the state of the shipping address
2. The location of your nexus (your store) is always used to determine taxes.
3. This means customer address is NEVER used to determine taxes

If that's you? Then you have this problem: 

1. You will have to create a MANUAL collection
   (Shopify purposely removed automated collections from the tax overrides, see link list below for details)
2. You will have to check the box for every product, one... at... a... time
3. Or, do a risky CSV import, every time you have new products. every time.

On top of this, if you use a CRM system or external INVENTORY system that connects to Quickbooks, or you have a multi-channel eCommerce operation where your master system is set up correctly, then be aware you will have this problem too:

1. Shopify will ADD X% of TAX onto every order for the customer address when you do not want that
2. which will make a huge MESS of all your systems
3. because Shopify will have illegally collected taxes from a customer
4. when your CRM system updates with the correct taxes you will have a discrepancy
5. you will have collected more taxes from the customer than your CRM tells you

How do you fix that?

Well... lol... you have to MANUALLY add an override: for every product - one at a time in a manual collection.

Here are all the relevant articles to read on this:

• This chain is worth reading, it lays out the problem clearly
  aka: "collection does not appear in product overrides under tax settings"
  yea: Shopify did that on purpose, you can only pick MANUAL collection. Absurd huh?
  Shopify purposely removed automated collections from tax overrides 
  https://community.shopify.com/c/shopify-discussions/cannot-found-the-product-collection-in-tax-setti... 
• Here is how to do a BULK import, but... lol... if you change your inventory often there is no way to automate this and you are going to risk creating a problem if even 1 thing go's wrong on that import
  https://community.shopify.com/c/shopify-discussions/bulk-import-and-collections-field/td-p/592055 
• Shopify support can not "support" this, they will simply tell you "make a manual collection"
  https://community.shopify.com/c/shopify-discussions/how-to-talk-to-someone/td-p/753142?utm_campaign=...
• These instructions should be updated to say "you can not easily override all taxes"
  https://help.shopify.com/en/manual/taxes/location
• These instructions should be updated to say "you can not easily override all taxes"
  https://help.shopify.com/en/manual/taxes/us/us-tax-manage#product-tax-codes

Here is the SOLUTION:

Add 1 checkbox and 1 text field into /admin/settings/taxes/

as follows: Override all taxes? YES - text field with correct tax rate.

DONE

When you see THAT as an option in Shopify, then this has truly been fixed

Till then?

• Get ready for Carpel Tunnel Syndrome while you click EVERY product in your inventory one at a time in a collection or risk doing a CSV bulk import
• Even when you onboard new products from your CRM, still need to add them into that manual collection override
• Even if you have created DRAFT or ARCHIVED products? still need to publish them and then add them into the manual collection
• If you do not do this, then your tax reporting will be off.

Be aware of what you are about to get into.

This absurd oversight and its resultant inefficient workflow is DESTRUCTUVE to automation - you will be coming into Shopify and MANUALLY messing with this if you have a large inventory or product catalog turnover. It will steal time from you that you will want back on your deathbed. Time that was not well spent. Precious time that should be used on far more worthwhile tasks.