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Registrations, exemptions & nexus

Registrations​

A registration records that you are registered to collect tax in a jurisdiction.

FieldNotes
RegimeIndia GST, EU VAT, UK VAT, US sales tax, Canada, APAC GST
JurisdictionCountry, and state or province where the regime is sub-national
Tax IDGSTIN, VAT number, permit number — validated on entry
SchemeWhere the regime has variants (for example India's QRMP)
Active from / toSo a lapsed registration stops applying to new supplies
Filing frequencyMonthly, quarterly or annual — drives the obligation calendar

Validation is real​

Tax IDs are checked against their actual specification:

RegimeCheck
India GSTIN15-character structure plus the base-36 checksum digit. The first two characters are the state code and are treated as authoritative for place of supply
EU VATPer-country format
UK VATFormat
Australia ABNWeighted-modulus checksum

Validation runs live as you type, so a transposed digit is caught at entry rather than at filing time.

The GSTIN prefix wins

When determining an Indian place of supply, the first two digits of the GSTIN are the most authoritative hint available — more reliable than a typed state name or an ISO code, both of which arrive from user input, imports and overrides in inconsistent forms. All of them are normalised through one shared function, so place-of-supply and the filing calendar can never disagree about which state a registration is in.

This is not academic: an unnormalised jurisdiction string caused QRMP filers in some states to be assigned the wrong statutory due date.

Nexus monitoring​

Nexus is the question of whether you are obliged to register somewhere you have not.

The engine tracks your rolling twelve-month turnover per jurisdiction and compares it against that jurisdiction's registration threshold:

JurisdictionThreshold
US (default)100,000 USD revenue, or 200 transactions
US — California, Texas500,000 USD
US — New York500,000 USD and 100 transactions
Australia75,000 AUD
Singapore1,000,000 SGD
New Zealand60,000 NZD

Per-state US rules that deviate from the default are carried as overrides, since post-Wayfair thresholds change regularly.

The nexus watch appears on the Overview tab as a set of progress bars and raises a notification as a threshold approaches. Crossing a threshold is a legal event with a registration deadline attached, so the alert is early rather than on-the-day.

A US figure without a provider is approximate, and says so

Real US sales tax is destination-based across state, county, city and special districts. The built-in state table lets the engine produce a figure offline, but it is flagged as approximate. For US filing accuracy, configure the tax provider so local rates resolve properly.

Exemptions and reverse charge​

An exemption certificate suppresses tax on supplies that match it — a resale certificate, a charity exemption, a B2B reverse-charge scenario.

Certificates carry an expiry date, and the nightly maintenance sweep expires them on schedule. An expired certificate that keeps zero-rating supplies is an under-collection that compounds silently, which is exactly the failure this avoids.

For B2B supplies in reverse-charge regimes, the customer type and the buyer's tax ID determine whether tax is charged or the liability shifts to the buyer. Both are captured on the computation, so a reverse-charge supply reports correctly on the return rather than looking like a missed collection.

Rate overrides and product tax classes​

Product tax classes​

Every product maps to a regime-neutral tax class, which each regime interprets into a rate:

ClassMeaning
StandardThe default rate
ReducedThe common reduced band
Super-reducedWhere the regime has one
Zero0% but taxable — reportable, and input tax credit eligible
ExemptOutside tax entirely — no input tax credit
DigitalElectronically supplied services, where place-of-supply rules differ

The distinction between zero and exempt is the one that catches people out. Both charge nothing; only one is reportable and credit-eligible, and getting it wrong changes what your return says.

Unmapped products are the most common cause of discrepancies

A product with no tax class falls back to the default. The reconciliation worklist flags fallback classification explicitly as a root cause, so a cluster of discrepancies usually resolves to a handful of unmapped products rather than to a rate problem.

Effective-dated overrides​

A rate override records a rate for a class, in a jurisdiction, from a date. Supplies before that date use whatever applied then; supplies on or after use the override. Historical returns therefore stay reproducible when a statutory rate changes.

For India, entered rates are validated against the valid combined slabs (0, 0.25, 3, 5, 12, 18 and 28 percent) so a typo cannot produce a rate that cannot legally exist.

Plan tiers​

CapabilityFreeStarterProAgencyEnterprise
Registrations with format validation——✓✓✓
Nexus and threshold monitoring——✓✓✓
Exemption and reverse-charge certificates——✓✓✓
Product tax classes——✓✓✓
Effective-dated rate overrides——✓✓✓
Tax provider for US local rates——✓✓✓

Best practices​

  • Register everything you are registered for, including jurisdictions with no recent sales. An empty jurisdiction costs nothing; a missing one turns every supply there into an unregistered verdict.
  • Set active-from dates truthfully. Backdating a registration changes what historical periods say you owed.
  • Map your product tax classes before your first close. It is the single highest-leverage thing you can do for reconciliation quality.
  • Watch the nexus bars quarterly. Thresholds are rolling twelve-month, so they can be crossed by a good quarter you were not thinking about.
  • Diary your certificate expiries. The sweep will expire them; the sweep cannot renew them.

See also​