Matt,

First, enable debug mode in your Avalara settings. This will log request and response messages to/from AvaTax to the BVC Audit Log. This should give you a clue as to what might be wrong. Here are the typical things to check:

• The "Url" field should be set to: https://avatax.avalara.net/
  
• Double-check your account ,license key, username, password, and company code (if applicable). If you see some kind of authentication error contact Avalara to make sure that you're using the correct credentials here.

Note that there are a few bug fixes and enhancements to the Avalara integration in BVC 2015 and 2015 SP1.

Other things to check...

• You've created tax rules in the BVC admin for the regions where you might charge tax; the actual sales tax rate specified doesn't matter. We use the tax rules only to determine whether it's necessary to make an AvaTax API call. For example, if you charge tax in three states, you would create a tax rule for each state (the rate could be 0.0%).
  
• You have the necessary Avalara workflow steps in your workflows:
  - Payment Complete workflow: "Avalara Commit Taxes" workflow step
  - Order Edited workflow: "Avalara Resubmit Taxes" workflow step
  - Payment Changed workflow: "Avalara Cancel Taxes When Payment Removed" workflow step
  

Edited by user Thursday, July 23, 2015 3:27:00 PM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

This is probably the issue. You need to have at least one rule. You can make that rule as broad as you like (e.g. one rule for each country where you have nexus), but you really should make it as specific as possible (e.g. one rule for each state where you have nexus) to save unnecessary API calls. This will speed up the cart and checkout pages for users outside your nexus and also reduce the amount that you have to pay Avalara (since their rates are set by the number of API calls that you make).


That's incorrect. Please re-add the "Apply Taxes" workflow step (and make sure that it's above the "Apply Handling" step) otherwise sales tax will never calculate. The Calculate Order workflow is run whenever an order is calculated of which the cart page is one of them.


I'm understanding this to mean that the three workflows and their corresponding workflow steps that I posted previously match your configuration. If so, good. This really should have no affect on the calculation of sales taxes when the order is placed but rather sending them to Avalara after the order is placed.

Edited by user Friday, July 24, 2015 7:18:22 AM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

Ok, so we solved the initial problem.
Now only the sub total is getting sent to Avalara, the shipping is getting left off even if we check the box to charge freight on shipping. So the shipping is not being included into what is sent to Avalara. If we use the built in tax collector tax is charged correctly.

Suggestions?

Was or is there a fix?

Ok,
Well we really need this to work by Saturday and that wouldn't give us enough time to do the upgrade. If we purchase the upgrade, will the fix in BV2015 work in BV2013?