Sandbox vs Production environments

Avalara provides two different environments for AFC.

Sandbox, which is used for testing: communicationsua.avalara.net
Production, which is used for live transactions and bill runs: communications.avalara.net

Each environment is separate, and each has its own credentials. If you have a Sandbox account, you cannot use that account to log onto Production and vice versa.

Note

When you receive credentials for AvaTax, it’s important to record the account number, name, and type. We keep Sandbox and Production credentials separate to help you test your software in Sandbox without the risk of accidentally affecting production data.

Sandbox and Production environments operate identically for tax calculation and reporting. Tax calculations produce the same results when identical client profiles are used in both environments.

Some differences between Sandbox and Production:

Each environment is self-contained and doesn’t impact the other environment. Some examples:
- When a profile is updated in one environment, it doesn’t impact the other environment unless you request that both environments be updated. Sandbox can be used to test profile changes in before applying the same profile to Production.
- Calculations performed in 1 environment only appear in reports for that environment. If you’re testing a bill run in Sandbox, you can perform the bill run repeatedly with no impact to Production reports.
- Access provided to users in 1 environment has no impact on who has access to the other environment. Developers, QA, and other team members can be given access to Sandbox, but not given access to Production.
Automated compliance reports for returns are generated from Production only.