ECM for ecommerce is an automated exemption certificate management solution designed specifically for integration with online shopping carts. It helps to achieve compliance and minimize audit exposure from tax-exempt internet sales. This cloud-based platform helps ecommerce companies to integrate directly with online shopping carts or customer account profile, and proactively manage missing, invalid, and expired certificates.

Use a Software Development Kit (SDK) to embed ECM’s document submission form into your ecommerce platform or online store, allowing customers to manage their exemption certificates before or after making the purchase. Returning customers can view their exemption status and any other data that’s helpful from their online account settings. Using the API, customers can download or update copies of their certificates.

The SDK provides you with much of the functionality you need, but you can plan to work with a developer having experience with JavaScript and REST APIs. This process requires prior software development knowledge to customize the workflow.

Note: ECM Pro and ECM Premium support backward compatibility with previous CertCapture APIs, Connectors, and ecommerce modules. Some code examples and API components, such as script sources, may reference CertCapture.

If you’re new to using ECM outside of the web application, both the AvaTax API or the CertCapture API are used to create an integration. For more information, refer to the following guides:

Prerequisites

The following are required before setting up the ECM for ecommerce:

Access to an existing ECM account
A web developer or site administrator who can integrate the ecommerce SDK with your website.

Note: The developer must have prior knowledge on using the REST API and JavaScript API.
Access to the AvaTax API to generate an authorization token. Using more API endpoints is optional, but recommended. This allows you to enhance the customer experience on the ecommerce website.

Important: Avalara doesn’t recommend storing API credentials in JavaScript. For your customer's data security, use the server-side implementation. Consider generating tokens from your web application server. Node and JavaScript examples in this topic must be used for reference only.

Required components for initializing an ecommerce workflow

Component	Description
Client ID (Company ID)	Identifies your ECM environment. This parameter is passed in the `Get Token` API call. API documentation may refer to this as the client ID, but it’s listed in the UI as a company ID. Find your company ID in the ECM by going to Settings > Company Details. The company ID can be found in your browser’s address bar when viewing the details page. Alternatively, find your company ID using an API command.
Script source URL	Production URL: https://app.certcapture.com/gencert2/js Sandbox URL: https://sbx.certcapture.com/gencert2/js
Customer Number	ECM identifies customers by their unique customer number.
ecommerce Token	A token is generated using the `CreateECommerceToken` API. The parameters are passed for each ecommerce SDK initialization. Note: The generated token expires after 1 hour.
Ship Zone	The state, jurisdiction, or custom exposure zone to which the certificate applies.

ECM in ecommerce environments