What is Avalara?


Avalara is an automated sales tax software that Groupon uses to accurately calculate an order's sale tax at the time of checkout. There is no cost to the merchant for creating, or linking, an AvaTax account in Gateway, and it is required per the Merchant Agreement (section 14.1.1).



Set up or link your Avalara AvaTax account under ”Taxes” 

From the “Profile” page, navigate to the Taxes tab. From here, scroll to the bottom of the page and read through the Avalara terms and conditions. You may then check the box and click submit. 




You will then receive an e-mail from Avalara with password instructions for your new AvaTax account. This AvaTax account is offered free-of-charge, and must be created in order to activate your Gateway account. 


If you have an existing AvaTax account, you will want to link your account instead, by clicking "Link my Avalara Tax account to Gateway." 



From here you will be directed to submit your Account ID and License Key. After submitting this, on the next screen, you will need to choose your Company Code by clicking on the grayed-out circle below "Which company would you like to link to?". You need to select this before moving forward, or your Taxes section will not be complete. If you did not select your company code and your Taxes section shows as incomplete, you will need to open a support ticket so that we can update this on our end for you.


If you ever need to confirm these three account identifiers in the future, please view them in Gateway by navigating to Profile> Taxes. 



License Key Changes


If for any reason you generate a new License Key, you must let a Groupon representative know as soon as possible so that we can update this for you. If you do not let us know, we will have issues processing your orders.



Account Setup Completed


After you have successfully completed AvaTax account setup in Gateway, you should not need to login to your Avalara AvaTax account to change or update anything unless you need to generate a new license key, download a reportor if you have tax obligations in other states.


Didn't receive your Avalara password setup email? One of two things happened:

  • Your AvaTax account is associated with the wrong email. Check your Gateway profile to see if the primary business email address is the one you are checking. If this is not the email you want to have associated with your AvaTax account, you will need to let us know, and provide us with a letter requesting to have this changed. Once we have this request, we can provide it to Avalara Customer Support to make changes to your account. 
  • If the email address in Gateway is correct, and that's the one you're checking, make sure to check your spam and junk folders!



Setting Up Additional States in AvaTax


First, you should determine whether or not you need to do this. 



Marketplace Facilitator States

As a marketplace facilitator, Groupon is responsible for calculation, collection, and remittance of sales tax in most of the states in the U.S. (learn more here). However, you may have registration and tax remittance responsibilities based on your sales activities through other platforms. This varies on a state-by-state basis, and detailed information on this topic is available here. If you're using AvaTax for sales tax liability reporting, you can filter out transactions that are managed by marketplaces, such as Groupon (learn more here).


For any of the states where Groupon is the marketplace facilitator and we list that we will be responsible for the sales tax, these transactions will not flow into your AvaTax account. Transactions will only flow into your AvaTax account for the states where Groupon is not the marketplace facilitator. When downloading transaction reports from your AvaTax account, there is a field called "CustomerVendorCode" that will help you identify your Groupon transactions from others.



Troubleshooting


If you are experiencing issues creating a new AvaTax account, please double-check that your legal business name and tax identification number in your profile match and are listed exactly as shown on your EIN documents. Please also check that your business address is accurate (unit numbers and letters matter). If you try creating a new AvaTax account on Gateway but you already have an existing account under the same business details or email address, you will receive an error that states your account could not be provisioned. In this case, try linking your existing account. 


If you have an existing AvaTax account, you will need to make sure you are using your correct Account ID, Company Code, and most recently generated License Key to link the account. If you cannot remember your License Key, simply generate a new one in your existing AvaTax account and use that when linking your account in Gateway. 



Managing multiple tax calculation services?

If you are already using another tax calculation service, unfortunately, you will still need to create a new AvaTax account in Gateway, or link an existing account, to sell on Groupon Goods Marketplace. When using another tax calculation service, in addition to Avalara, you'll need to import and/or export the transaction data. 


If you are selling products online through other platforms, and you would like information on how to connect your AvaTax account to additional platforms, see Learn more about Avalara integrations.




Managing Avalara Trustfile?


If you have Avalara Trustfile, please proceed with creating a new AvaTax account in Gateway. Also, please let Groupon know so that we can provide your account information to Avalara. Although AvaTax and Trustfile are both provided by Avalara, these are separate services:

  • Trustfile is a compliance/tax reporting service that pulls in tax data from various sources. Trustfile does not calculate tax.
  • AvaTax is a tax calculation product that provides real-time accurate tax rates. AvaTax is integrated into Groupon Goods Gateway so that accurate tax amounts are added to all transactions.



Other questions about Avalara AvaTax?


If you ever have questions about Avalara or your AvaTax account, you should reach out to Groupon. Per our partner agreement, merchants should not contact Avalara support in any scenario. Unfortunately, both Avalara and Groupon can not offer any tax-related advice, suggestions, or recommendations to you. We will always urge you to reach out to a tax professional for advice, suggestions, or recommendations.



Questions about state taxes on Goods Marketplace?


If you have questions about state taxes on Groupon Goods Marketplace, please review our Marketplace Tax FAQ.