Before beginning an integration, ensure that you understand the AvaTax Excise (ATE) engine and determine how you’ll use ATE.

ATE on its own is a middleware engine to AvaTax. With ATE, you can provide transaction data to the engine, and ATE will return the tax calculations. You can also void and adjust these transactions in ATE, and ATE saves that data. At this point, it's up to you to determine what you will do with that data.

ATE isn’t a reporting engine. For reporting fuel transactions, you’ll want to capture the transaction data in your source system. You can provide this data to the Avalara Managed Returns team. You can do this by setting up a feed to send the data, or you can work with Avalara to determine the best way to provide this information to the Avalara Managed Returns team.

Note: Contact your excise implementation consultant for the latest field specifications and information related to creating an Avalara Returns Excise (ARE) import file.

For tobacco, nicotine, or vape transactions, connect ATE to call out to AvaTax and pass your data through. When connecting to AvaTax, you can commit, adjust, and void transactions in AvaTax. You can also file returns using AvaTax.

Information about how to connect ATE to AvaTax is available in the upcoming Connecting to AvaTax topic.

Understanding AvaTax Excise (ATE)