Entity Tax Registration
An Entity Tax Registration records that your company is registered to collect tax in a particular jurisdiction — what tax authorities call nexus. It’s the difference between “we charge tax here” and “we don’t (yet).”
This object answers a question the rest of the engine can’t: even if a tax rule perfectly matches a sale, should you actually charge the tax? Only if your entity is registered where the customer is. The registration is the gate — and it runs before any rule fires.
Access you'll need. Creating and editing tax registrations requires the Accounting Admin v2 or Accounting Controller v2 permission set. The Accounts Payable v2, Accounts Receivable v2, and Read Only v2 sets can view them but not change them.
The nexus gate — and why “no tax” isn’t an error
When an invoice posts, before matching a single rule the engine checks: is the entity registered in the buyer’s jurisdiction (or an ancestor of it), with an active record whose effective dates cover the invoice date? If yes, tax proceeds. If no, the lines get zero tax and the invoice posts normally.
One point people miss: the gate applies to domestic sales too. There is no automatic “home country” nexus — an entity with no registration at all charges no tax anywhere, including its own country. In practice a single country-level registration satisfies the gate for all domestic sales, so once it exists the check is invisible; it earns its keep in cross-border and multi-state operations.
One registration can cover many places
Like rules, the nexus check is ancestry-aware. A registration is honoured for the buyer’s exact jurisdiction and anything below it:
- A GB registration covers a buyer in England, Scotland, Wales, or Northern Ireland.
- A US-TX registration covers a buyer in any Texas city or district.
- A BR-SP registration covers buyers within São Paulo state.
So you register at the level the tax operates at — country for UK VAT, state for Brazilian ICMS or US sales tax — and the hierarchy does the rest.
The fields — with UK & Brazil values
Registrations are specific to your entities, so these are illustrative values that mirror real setups — a UK VAT registration beside a Brazil São Paulo ICMS registration:
| Field | Type | Required | What it’s for | 🇬🇧 UK | 🇧🇷 Brazil (SP) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Entity | Master-Detail | Yes | Your company holding the registration | Reda UK Ltd | Reda Brasil Ltda |
| Tax Jurisdiction | Lookup | Yes | Where you have a collection obligation | GB | BR-SP |
| Tax Type | Lookup | No | Specific tax, or blank for a general registration | (blank / VAT) | BR-ICMS |
| Registration Number | Text | No | The official number from the authority | GB123456789 | (state IE) |
| Registration Date | Date | No | When the authority granted it | 2018-04-01 | 2019-01-15 |
| Effective From | Date | Yes | When it takes effect for collection | 2018-04-01 | 2019-01-15 |
| Effective To | Date | No | Expiry — blank = indefinite | (blank) | (blank) |
| Is Active | Checkbox | No | Off → treated as not registered | Yes | Yes |
In practice: UK vs Brazil vs US
| Country | Typical registrations | Why |
|---|---|---|
| 🇬🇧 UK | One, at GB | VAT is UK-wide — a single registration covers all four nations |
| 🇧🇷 Brazil | One per state you operate in (BR-SP, BR-RJ…) | ICMS is a state tax; each state is a separate registration |
| 🇺🇸 US | One per state where you have economic nexus | You collect a state’s sales tax only once registered there |
Guardrails & setup
- Effective dates must be sane — Effective To can’t precede Effective From (a validation rule enforces it).
- Jurisdiction is locked after creation — you can’t repoint a registration to a different place; create a new one instead. This keeps the historical nexus picture honest.
- Register at the tax’s level. Country for UK VAT, state for Brazil ICMS and US sales tax — ancestry coverage handles everything below.
- Deactivate when you de-register rather than deleting, so past invoices keep their context.
- Not seeded. Registrations are your company’s own — you create them per entity per jurisdiction as you take on obligations.
Where to go next
- Tax Jurisdictions — the places you register to collect tax in.
- Tax Types — the named taxes your registration covers.
- How Tax Calculates on a Document — how registration decides whether tax fires.
- US Sales Tax & Nexus — registration as nexus, worked end to end.
- Tax Rules — the rules that read your registrations.
Frequently asked questions
Usually not. The engine charges tax only where your entity is registered. If there’s no active registration in the buyer’s jurisdiction for the invoice date, it records zero tax by design — the US “Wayfair” pattern. Add a registration if you do have an obligation there.
Only where you have nexus. The UK needs one (at GB). Brazil needs one per state you operate in, because ICMS is a state tax. The US needs one per state where you’ve crossed the economic-nexus threshold.
Yes — the nexus check is ancestry-aware. A registration at a country or state level covers every jurisdiction beneath it (a GB registration covers all UK nations; a US-TX registration covers Texas cities).
It lets a registration cover a specific tax, or be left blank for a general registration in that jurisdiction. Use it where an authority registers you separately per tax; otherwise a general registration is fine.
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