# Client profiles

Source: https://developer.avalara.com/products/communications/integration-guides/communications-integration/gpz1184146624903/

Guide: Communications

# Client profiles

Learn about client profiles, their benefits, and how to use them with the AFC tax engine.

**What is a client profile?**

A client profile allows you to customize how the AFC tax engine interprets a request and returns tax results. Customization include:

-   Bundles
-   Exclusions
-   Tax Overrides
-   AFC Tax Engine configuration

**Why would I use a client profile?**

Reasons to use a client profile include:

-   Profiles are cached, which speeds up response times.

-   Using a client profile eliminates including the same customization, such as a tax override, in each calculation request.

    -   Request a client profile containing customization files and customizations be added to your client.
    -   Specify the `client_profile_id` in the request header to apply the client profile to all requests run using that header.
-   Multiple profiles can be applied to your client ID. Examples use for multiple profiles include:

    -   Separate configurations for different types of transactions
    -   Separate configurations for child companies
    -   Testing new configurations

**How do I add a client profile to a session?**

When authenticating to Communications REST v2, pass the following to the request header.

-   `Authorization` using basic HTTP authentication
-   `client_id`
-   `Content-Type: application/json`
-   `client_profile_id`

The image below shows how to add a `client_profile_id` to your request an example in Postman. Once set up, you can run AFC transactions using that profile.

Note

REST v2 uses the system default profile when a profile isn’t specified. To send a transaction without a client profile, modify the header using one of these options:

-   Don’t include a `client_profile_id` in the header.
-   Set the `client_profile_id` to `0`, which is the system default profile.