When to commit

Note Committing is required in cases where Avalara files on behalf of the customer.

In ATE, transactions are associated with a transaction ID (TranId). This ID is a unique identifier in a transaction response. ATE relies on this code to determine whether a transaction is committed ("true") or uncommitted ("false"). A document code’s default commit status is uncommitted.

You can think of a transaction ID's commit status as a simple flag that determines whether a transaction should appear on your compliance reports for remittance to the Department of Revenue at the end of your filing period. Managing transaction IDs in your application is critical to a successful implementation. Good transaction ID management also makes the compliance reporting experience easier for your downstream users.

The Commit API is used when not all of the calculated taxes are deemed final for compliance reporting. When a transaction is deemed final, you can commit the transaction ID associated with the transaction via the Commit API.

You can commit an entire invoice by committing the transaction ID associated with that invoice rather than recalculating the taxes.

You don't need to commit or uncommit transactions in real time. You only need to ensure your transaction IDs have the correct commit status before reconciliation or report generation begins. This is usually at the end of a filing period.

Committed transaction IDs are locked on the 1st day of the subsequent calendar month in which they’re sent. For example, if you commit a transaction ID on November 15, that transaction ID will be locked on December 1. You can't uncommit locked transactions.

The Commit API in ATE allows you to choose the data that should appear in your compliance reports.

To use the Commit API:

Create new transactions at any point in the billing cycle.
Retrieve the transaction's TranId.
Run the Commit API for that transaction to include in or exclude from the compliance report for the reporting cycle.