Create and activate a company

About this task

Before you begin

Ensure you have the necessary permissions to activate a company in your Avalara account.

About this task

The Avalara Knowledge Center provides detailed information about how to set up a company, including the information you need to collect, adding your company information, and specifying where you’ll collect taxes.

For the purposes of this integration guide, we'll walk through the setup process for creating a company in your Sandbox environment. Technology partners can create a test company with generic information; API customers may want to use their actual company information.

Steps

Sign in to your Avalara Sandbox environment.
1. Check your email for the confirmation that you received from Avalara when you signed up for your account.
2. Sign in to your account using the username and link in your confirmation email.
3. Follow the prompts to create a new password.
4. Select I accept to the Terms and Conditions.
Select Get started to begin the walk through for adding a company. The first step is to specify a name, phone number, and taxpayer ID for the company. This information isn’t verified, so technology partners can specify a generic name and taxpayer ID.
Accept the defaults for Is this a standalone company or a child company? and Is this an online marketplace?, then select Next.
Enter a mailing address for your company. Validate the address, and then select Next.
Once you've validated your company's primary address, AvaTax enables tax collection in that jurisdiction. The next step is to add more regions where this company will collect tax. Select Yes, add more US regions, then select Select from a list.
For the purposes of this integration guide, we recommend that technology partners enable jurisdictions in locations where they’ll perform test transactions. To run the test transactions included in this guide, enable tax collection in: Hawaii

Then, select Add selected regions.
For regions where a sales and/or use tax could apply, AvaTax prompts to specify the type of tax to collect. For technology partners and for the sake of testing, select Sales or sellers use tax. For merchants and API customers, the tax type you select should match the tax return you need to file. Select Next.
When prompted to confirm whether this company is registered to collect and pay tax in other countries, make your selection based on the scope of your integration. Select No, where I collect tax is complete.
A confirmation page opens. Select Done with tax jurisdictions.
Finally, select Activate company to begin using AvaTax.

Result

The company is now active, and you can manage its tax calculations and compliance settings.

Tip

You can create multiple company profiles within a single AvaTax account. If you create multiple company profiles, you must designate one as the default company. AvaTax uses company codes to designate which company profile processes the transaction. When creating transactions in AvaTax, if you don't specify a company code, then AvaTax uses the default company to process that transaction.
You can set up a hierarchy of companies in a parent-child relationship. More information about adding child companies is available in the upcoming Optional: Set up a hierarchy of subsidiary companies topic.