# Adding business entities

Source: https://developer.avalara.com/products/excise/integration-guides/excise/voi7106701580416/

Guide: AvaTax Excise

# Adding business entities

Learn the required and optional fields for adding business entities in AvaTax Excise.

ATE expects that you have BEs configured in your account before running a transaction. BEs can be imported through the AvaTax Excise portal or using the [ImportBusinessEntitiesController](https://developer.avalara.com/api-reference/excise/v1/methods/ImportBusinessEntitiesController/ImportBusinessEntitiesController_ImportBusinessEntities/) API.

A new BE record requires the following information at a minimum:

-   `LegalName`: The legal name of the person or entity that owns the business:
-   `EffectiveDate`: The date when this BE becomes (or became) valid for use.
-   `CustomId`. This is a value used to identify a BE and to generate a direct tie between a concept in ATE and your system of record. A custom ID could be a ship-to number, vendor master number, business associate ID, and so on. It's possible for multiple BEs to have the same custom ID. For example, you may have obsoleted a BE and created a new BE based on a copy of it.
-   One or more BE ID codes. These codes consist of the following:
    -   `CountryCode`: The country code for that ID
    -   `IdType`: The type of code that the entity uses for identification. A BE ID code type can be:
        -   `FEIN`
        -   `SSN`
        -   `CBN`
        -   `CUSTOM` (with a max length of 10)
    -   `IdCode`: A unique ID to identify this BE ID code combination
-   Priority values for the custom ID (`CustomIdPriority`), legal name (`LegalNamePriority`), and ID code/type combination (`IdCodeAndIdTypePriority`). The priority values are used for matching a BE. Priority and matching are described in the next section.

In addition to the above fields, the following optional fields may be needed on a case-by-case basis:

-   `TradeName`: The name that a business uses for advertising and sales purposes. This can be different than the business's `LegalName`.
-   `ObsoleteDate`: The date when a BE will no longer be valid. For example, you may want to obsolete a BE if its name or address changes, if it's part of a takeover, and so on. In these cases, you can create a new BE based on the updated business information, and you’ll still have a record of the obsolete BE.
-   `AlternateJurisdiction`: An alternate jurisdiction identifier that's used by certain tax jurisdictions.
-   Location information: Include the street-level address for a business. Sometimes, a county is required for county-based taxes.

As mentioned previously, a business entity record must also include at least 1 business account. Each BA can include the following fields:

-   `CountryCode`: The 3-digit ISO country code for this BA's location
-   `Jurisdiction`: The state or region of this location
-   `BusinessType`: A string indicating the type of business (for example, `Seller`)
-   `BusinessSubType`: A string to explain further the business type (for example, `Gasoline supplier`). This can be jurisdiction specific.
-   `CustomId`: An optional way to identify BAs
-   `EffectiveDate`: The date when a BA's license number becomes valid
-   `ObsoleteDate`: The date when a BA's license number becomes obsolete. This is useful for states that renew licenses every year.
-   `LicenseNumber`: State-specific license for a tax exemption, tax deferral, or tax activation or to provide a tax collection allowance.
-   `LicensePercentage`: The percentage that should be applied to a tax exemption, tax deferral, tax activate, or tax collection allowance
-   `BusinessAccountMappingId`: A unique GUID for identifying a BA

**Parent topic:** [Business entities](/excise/bhy8503430047253/ "Learn about business entities and their role in ATE transactions.")