Address types

Address types

Address types are used to help determine tax for a given transaction in a given situation. A retail transaction and an ecommerce transaction are not that much different: they both use addresses, but while the retail location generally uses SingleLocation most ecommerce transactions will use the ShipFrom and ShipTo address types.

You can specify addresses at either the document level or the line level.

  • Document level: A transaction, as a whole, uses the document level addresses as the default. If a transaction does not have any addresses at the line level, each line will be assumed to use the addresses from the document level. When you record a single transaction, and all invoice lines on the transaction have the same addresses, you only need to set your address values once at the root level of your transaction, no matter how many invoice lines you are calculating.
  • Line level: Line level addresses represent individual, separate shipments. It is possible to have a scenario where an end customer is checking out of the cart with the products/services from different merchants. In this case, the shipFrom address will be different for some or all lines. Of course, the shipTo address is likely to always be the same for a given checkout process, but ideally you will pass them together at line level. Any time you set a value on the addresses field on an invoice line, that line will ignore all document-level addresses.

The table below describes Address Types available in AvaTax, including those added in AvaTax for VAT calculation. We recommend whenever possible to pass all known addresses in a transaction.

Field NameAttributesSummaryDocument TypesSupported Product Types
shipFrom

AddressLocationInfo

Conditional

The location where the item is shipped from.

This should be submitted in every transaction. If other addresses or data are missing from the transaction, this address is used to assume establishment and VAT calculation.

All

Physical goods

Digital goods

General Services

shipTo

AddressLocationInfo

Conditional

The location where the items are shipped to.

This should be submitted in every transaction. If other addresses or data are missing from the transaction, this address is used to assume establishment and VAT calculation.

All

Physical goods

Digital goods

General Services

pointOfOrderOrigin

AddressLocationInfo

Conditional

The location from where your customer (home or business) placed the order to you.

This is used to determine the establishment country of your customer. For B2B transactions, we will assume your customer is established in this country.

SalesPhysical goods
pointOfOrderAcceptance

AddressLocationInfo

Conditional

The location where the order was accepted by your supplier, such as a call center, business office where purchase orders are accepted, and server locations where orders are processed and accepted.

This address is used to determine the establishment country of your supplier in the transaction. For B2B transactions, we will assume the supplier is established in this country.

PurchasePhysical goods
goodsPlaceOrServiceRendered

AddressLocationInfo

Conditional

The full address where the goods are located when there is no transportation.

This is required when goods are already at their destination and no transport is involved.

Do not include this address if both the ShipFrom and ShipTo addresses are in the US.

Any document type that includes cases where "transport"="none" and goods are at their final destination.Physical goods
import

AddressLocationInfo

Conditional

The full address where goods are imported into.

This is required when goods are imported into a country that is different than the ShipTo.

Do not include this address if both the ShipFrom and ShipTo addresses are in the US.

Any document type with cases that involve cross borderPhysical goods

Advice: The goodsPlaceOrServiceRendered and/or an import address types are not used for US indirect tax calculations.