BigCommerce Integration

BigCommerce has emerged as a comprehensive e-commerce platform and tool for small businesses and e-commerce sellers, with over 42,000 active stores. This has enabled sellers to expand their reach beyond traditional brick-and-mortar constraints and tap into a bigger market.

However, as things have shifted to a more digital format, companies are left open to risk regarding sales tax. That’s why e-commerce integrations and APIs are essential, as they automate sales tax calculation, ensuring you pay the correct sales tax amount to the states you operate in.

This article will discuss how to use BigCommerce sales tax integration to help your online store ensure sales tax compliance.

BigCommerce and Sales Tax

Sales tax changes from state to state, and as a BigCommerce store owner, understanding how state and local taxes work is crucial to maintaining sales tax compliance. Every state and local jurisdiction has different sales tax rates and rules. If you fail to comply or pay sales tax, your storefront could face significant fines and penalties.

Does BigCommerce Collect and Remit Sales Tax for Sellers?

BigCommerce does not remit sales tax for sellers with storefronts on the platform. This is because it is not a marketplace platform like Amazon. This puts extra pressure on sellers to make sure all settings within BigCommerce are set up correctly and that they are collecting sales tax correctly so they can remit it to the states.

If you don’t remit or collect sales tax, this can severely impact the customer experience. Customers who aren’t charged sales tax upfront and are charged after the fact may not want to buy from your storefront again.

How Sales Tax Works for Your BigCommerce Store

As a business owner, you can face hefty penalties and audits from tax authorities for failing to file sales tax returns. You must know how sales tax works for your business so you know when you must register, collect, remit, and file sales tax returns for any orders you sell.

Sales Tax Nexus and Your Company

The concept of sales tax nexus plays a crucial role in the world of e-commerce, especially for BigCommerce store owners. Nexus is the link that determines whether a business has a tax obligation in a particular jurisdiction. For online retailers, this means you could be required to collect and remit sales tax not just where you're physically located but also in other states or countries where you have significant sales or business activities.

For BigCommerce store owners, identifying if and when your store establishes a nexus in various jurisdictions is key. This involves understanding both physical presence—such as having an office, warehouse, or employee in a location—and economic nexus, which is based on sales volume or transaction counts. Monitoring your sales data and staying updated on changing nexus laws across states is imperative to determine your tax obligations accurately.

Determining Which Products to Charge Sales Tax On

As you determine your nexus obligations, you also must research which products you’ll need to collect tax on. Each state has a taxable goods list, and depending on the state and product category, certain items you sell may be exempt.

Most states do not charge taxes on food, clothing, and textbooks.

How BigCommerce Supports Sales Tax Compliance

BigCommerce simplifies sales tax compliance for online businesses by providing robust, automated tools to manage the complexities of tax calculation and collection. The platform is designed to automatically apply the correct sales tax rates during each transaction based on the latest tax rules and rates. This ensures that businesses charge their customers the correct sales tax amount, reducing the risk of errors and non-compliance with tax laws.

BigCommerce Sales Tax Features

BigCommerce equips businesses with several key features to manage sales tax, including: 

• Automatic Tax Rate Calculations: The platform automatically calculates the appropriate sales tax rate during checkout based on the product sold and the customer’s shipping address.
• Customizable Tax Rules: Businesses can set specific tax rules tailored to different types of products or customer locations, giving them flexibility to address unique tax requirements.
• Integration with Third-Party Tax Compliance Software: BigCommerce can connect with specialized tax compliance software, enhancing its tax handling capabilities by incorporating additional detailed tax reporting and filing tools.

By offering these features, BigCommerce helps ensure that businesses comply with diverse sales tax regulations and manage their tax obligations more easily and accurately.

How to Set Up Sales Tax in BigCommerce

Sales tax software works with major e-commerce platforms, including BigCommerce. The platform has a wide range of features that retailers love, including unlimited products and storage, streamlined conversion through single-page checkout, and scaling your brand through their app marketplace add-ons.

Options to Calculate With BigCommerce

When it comes to sales tax calculations with BigCommerce, you have a few options. You can use:

1. BigCommerce Basic Tax

BigCommerce provides a basic tax feature, allowing you to specify tax classes, zones, and rates. It’s great to get started with if you understand your sales tax liability, but it requires a lot of time for set-up and maintenance.

2. BigCommerce App Marketplace

As businesses grow, there will be more to manage with sales tax. BigCommerce’s Apps & Integrations marketplace offers resources you need when you need them. The BigCommerce App Marketplace offers several sales tax and compliance solutions. It’s important to choose a provider and their app based on reputation and customer reviews.

3. The Zamp Tax App for BigCommerce

Zamp provides a feature-packed BigCommerce integration, including sales tax calculations and transaction reporting. It allows us to seamlessly provide BigCommerce sellers with a fully managed sales tax service combined with an in-house support team that’s here for them every step of the way. 

Filing Sales Tax for BigCommerce

The Zamp Tax App for BigCommerce guarantees that we have all completed transactions up to the minute. Depending on your filing frequencies for each state, we can build a complete and detailed summary of the sales tax due up to the minute without omissions.

Our industry-expert filing team aims for accuracy, so we’ll also summarize what filings are due and how much. This will allow you to review and reconcile across all your systems.

Ready to get started with Zamp for BigCommerce? Speak with an expert today.

Automating Sales Tax Calculation With BigCommerce Integrations

To reduce the burden of manually updating sales tax rates and ensure accuracy, BigCommerce allows integration with third-party tax calculators. These tools automatically adjust sales tax rates in real-time based on the latest tax laws applicable to the customer’s location. This automation dramatically simplifies managing sales tax requirements across various jurisdictions.

Managing Different Tax Rates Across Multiple Jurisdictions

BigCommerce enables you to effectively manage and apply different tax rates for customers in various regions. Whether you're selling to customers in multiple states or countries, the platform can handle multiple tax rates, ensuring that each customer is charged the correct sales tax amount at checkout.

Ensuring Accurate Sales Tax Collection At Checkout

With BigCommerce, you can ensure that the sales tax collected at the checkout is accurate. The platform updates tax calculations in real time, reflecting tax laws or rate changes. This real-time adjustment helps prevent any discrepancies in tax collection, ensuring compliance and customer trust.

By following these steps and utilizing BigCommerce’s robust tax management tools, you can set up a sales tax system that is both efficient and compliant, leaving you more time to focus on growing your business.

Integrating Third-Party Sales Tax Solutions with BigCommerce

Incorporating third-party sales tax software with your BigCommerce store can significantly streamline tax management processes. Here’s how leveraging these tools can benefit your business and ensure compliance.

Benefits Of Using Third-Party Sales Tax Software With BigCommerce

Integrating third-party sales tax software offers several advantages:

• Enhanced Compliance: These tools keep up-to-date with the latest tax regulations, ensuring that your business always complies with state and federal laws.
• Improved Efficiency: Automating tax calculations saves time and reduces errors. This efficiency can be especially beneficial during busy sales periods.
• Detailed Tax Management: These tools' advanced features allow for more precise tax handling, such as differentiating tax rates by product type or managing exemptions.

How Integration Enhances Sales Tax Compliance And Efficiency

Integrating third-party sales tax solutions with BigCommerce ensures that your tax calculations are precise and reflect current laws that often change. This continuous synchronization with updated tax rules minimizes non-compliance risk and the potential for penalties. Automated calculations also free up resources, allowing your team to focus more on sales and customer service rather than sales tax compliance.

Case Studies Of Successful Sales Tax Management Through Integration

Many businesses have benefited from integrating third-party tax solutions with Zamp.

Annmarie Skin Care, founded by Annmarie and Kevin Gianni, quickly grew from a passion project into a substantial e-commerce business driven by their commitment to natural skincare products. As the business expanded, the complexity of managing sales tax across various jurisdictions became a significant challenge. Rose Sprague, the company's Accounting Associate, faced the daunting task of overseeing the complex sales tax requirements, which demanded precise attention to numerous transactions.

Annmarie Skin Care partnered with Zamp to streamline their sales tax processes, a sales tax software provider that integrates directly with Shopify. This integration allows Zamp to access transactional data directly, ensuring all sales tax is calculated accurately and efficiently. The key benefits of this partnership include proactive compliance with sales tax laws, responsive customer support from Zamp, and a fully managed sales tax solution that automates the entire process, significantly reducing the administrative burden on the Annmarie team.

The results of this collaboration have been a game-changer for Rose and her team, with Annmarie Skin Care achieving eight months of accurate and timely sales tax filings across 45 states. Rose highly recommends Zamp for their exceptional support throughout the onboarding process and their continued proactive management, which provides peace of mind and allows the Annmarie team to focus more on their mission of promoting healthier skin care choices. This case study highlights the advantages of integrating third-party sales tax solutions for e-commerce businesses, emphasizing the potential for improved efficiency and compliance.

Check out the full story here.

Challenges and Best Practices in Sales Tax Management

Managing sales tax can be tricky for businesses due to several reasons:

• Tax rates vary widely by location, and keeping track of these changes is challenging.
• Collecting the right amount of tax from customers requires accurate calculations.
• It's crucial to file taxes correctly and on schedule to avoid penalties.

Best Practices for Sales Tax Compliance with BigCommerce

To ensure your business remains compliant with sales tax laws when using BigCommerce, consider these practices:

• Frequently check and update your tax settings within BigCommerce to reflect any changes or updates in tax rates.
• Utilize automated tools provided by BigCommerce to minimize errors in precise tax calculations.
• Stay alert to any changes in sales tax laws that could affect your business, and adjust your settings accordingly.

Using BigCommerce's Reporting Tools for Sales Tax Filing

BigCommerce simplifies sales tax filing by providing reporting tools that collect and organize your needed data. These tools help ensure you have all the required information at your fingertips when it's time to file your taxes, making the process more straightforward and less time-consuming.

Keeping Up with Sales Tax Law Changes

Staying informed about updates and changes in sales tax regulations is crucial. This knowledge helps you avoid legal issues and ensures your business always adheres to current laws. Regularly reviewing updates in tax regulations will keep you compliant and ready for any changes that come your way.

BigCommerce Integration: Conclusion

BigCommerce significantly simplifies the complex task of managing sales tax for e-commerce businesses. By integrating BigCommerce with third-party tools, companies can enhance their compliance and handle their sales tax obligations more efficiently. 

E-commerce operators should adopt comprehensive sales tax strategies that leverage these technologies. Doing so will ensure compliance and streamline the entire sales tax process, allowing businesses to focus more on growth and less on administrative burdens.

Why Zamp?

Zamp is the first fully managed sales tax platform, and we always put our customers first. We’ve been named a Major Player in the Small, Mid, and Enterprise SUT markets in IDC’s 2024 IDC MarketScape for Worldwide SaaS and Cloud-enabled Tax Automation Software and featured in the top ten best sales tax software companies by taxtech500.

We help businesses outsource their sales tax from start to finish. Our platform manages the complete sales tax lifecycle by offering:

• Hands-off onboarding: We set up everything for you and ensure it’s done right.
• Full sales tax compliance service: We offer nexus tracking, registrations, roof-top accurate calculations, product taxability research, mapping, reporting, and filing. All this is included in our pricing model — one fee for everything.
• Proactive account support: We are always looking for any changes in sales tax requirements, and our team is happy to answer any questions you may have.

See how you can save time and stay sales tax compliant with Zamp. Book a call below!

About the author

Emily Kordys

Emily Kordys is a Content Marketing Manager with seven years of experience in the sales tax, auto, and real estate industries. She currently resides in North Carolina with her boyfriend and dogs, Shadow and Copr.