Sales Tax

How do I charge for sales tax in my estimates?

There are several different ways to charge for sales tax, when using Goldenseal estimating software. The best method depends on how you pay sales tax on the items you buy.

Sales Tax Collected from Customer

If you collect sales tax from your customers and then pay it to a tax agency, follow these steps:

  1. Choose Income Setup from the Income menu, and choose Sales Tax from the submenu.
  2. Click the New button, and enter information for the usual sales tax rate that you collect and pay.
  3. Click OK.
  4. When you create an Estimate, fill that tax rate into the Tax Rate field on the Estimate.

NOTE-- When you act as a tax collector, you should not add sales tax as a line item in your estimates, nor include it in your markup.

Sales Tax Paid to Vendors

If you pay sales tax on the materials that you buy, follow these steps:

  1. Choose Estimates from the Income menu.
  2. Click the template button to the right of the New button, and choose a template to use as a source.
  3. Scroll to the bottom of the list of line items, and click in the last row.
  4. Hit the Enter key or Return key to add a new row.
  5. Enter Pcnt of Mat'l into the Cost Area column.
  6. Enter Sales Tax into the Category column (optional).
  7. Enter a brief description of the tax into the Cost Item column.
  8. Enter your local sales tax rate into the Quantity column. If you buy from a variety of vendors that have different tax rates, then enter an average.
  9. Goldenseal will automatically calculate the material total from the estimate, and add a sales tax percentage on that amount.

HINT-- Enter a Sales Tax line item into your estimating templates. Then it will automatically include them in the new estimates that you create from those templates.

Sales Tax In Markup

If you prefer to include sales tax as part of your markup percentage, start by creating a Markup System that includes the sales tax percentage. To do that, follow these steps:

  1. Choose Income Setup from the Income menu, and choose Markup Systems from the submenu.
  2. Click the New button to create a new Markup System.
  3. Type in a name for the Markup System (you might want to call it "Materials with Sales Tax").
  4. Click on the Calculation popup field next to Project, and choose Simple Markup.
  5. Enter your local sales tax rate into the Amount field. If you buy from a variety of vendors that have different tax rates, then enter an average.
  6. Repeat steps 4 and 5 for the Component fields.
  7. Click OK.

Next, apply that Markup System to all of your material Cost Items. To do that, follow these steps:

  1. Choose Cost Items from the Costs menu.
  2. Choose Find from the Edit menu.
  3. Enter Material into the Cost Area popup field.
  4. Click the Find button. Goldenseal will find all your material Cost Items.
  5. Enter the new Markup System into the Markup System field.
  6. Choose Replace All from the Edit menu.
  7. Choose Markup System from the list of fields, then click OK.
  8. Goldenseal will fill the new system into all your material Cost Items.

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