Your Sales Tax report summarizes the tax your shop has charged and the tax you owe, broken down by the type of work sold — Labor, Parts, Tires, Subcontracts, Shop Supplies, EPA, and Fees. It's the primary tool most shops use when preparing their sales tax returns and reconciling what was collected against what's owed to the taxing authority. The report highlights two headline numbers — Taxes Collected and Taxes Owed — and provides a breakdown table showing taxable, non-taxable, and tax-exempt amounts for each type of line item.

If your shop is in Canada, you'll see three breakdown tables instead of one — a separate table for GST, PST, and HST.

Filters

Date Filters

Think of the date filters as answering two different questions:

• Invoiced Date = "I want data about jobs I billed during this period" — use when the question is "what did we invoice?"
• Fully Paid Date = "I want data about jobs the customer paid in full during this period" — use when the question is "what cash came in?"
• Both at once = intersection — the job must have been both invoiced AND fully paid during the selected windows. This is a narrow view for reconciliation; most routine tax prep uses just one filter.

Neither mode is more "correct" — they answer different questions.

Understanding Each Number

The Sales Tax Snapshot includes taxes collected and taxes owed.

Each row is a line item type — Labor, Parts, Tires, Subcontract, Shop Supplies, EPA, Fees — with a Totals row at the bottom. The columns:

Fees always shows – for Taxable, Tax Exempt, and Discounts — fees are never taxable, can't be exempt, and aren't discountable. Their full amount lands in Non-Taxable.

Shop Supplies and EPA show – for Discounts — these aren't discountable.

Common Questions

Q: Why does my Sales Tax total look huge — way more than this month?

A: The date filter isn't actually applied until you pick a period from the dropdown, even though the "current month" range shows in the filter panel. Click Filters → Invoiced Date, pick "This Month" (or whatever range you need), and the totals will update. This catches a lot of customers — the displayed range is misleading until you interact with it.

Q: Why is the Non-Taxable column empty everywhere?

A: Your shop's tax rate is probably set to 0%. Non-Taxable only shows values when your tax rate is non-zero. Go to Settings → Tax to confirm your rate is set correctly.

Q: Why does my Canadian "Taxes Collected" say $0?

A: The main headline on that card reads the US-style single tax field, which is typically 0 for Canadian shops. Your real GST, HST, and PST totals appear right below as sub-values on the same card. Use those.

Q: Why doesn't this match my Sales Summary Revenue Breakdown tax row?

A: These should match when filters align. The most common reason they differ: Sales Summary is always scoped to invoiced orders, but Sales Tax only excludes Estimates and Repair Orders when you actively apply the Invoiced Date filter. Apply the same Invoiced Date range on both reports and the tax rows should align.

Q: Why doesn't this match the Tax column on my All Invoices report?

A: Sales Tax recalculates tax from your current line item data every time the report runs. All Invoices shows the tax amount that was stored on each order at invoice time. For jobs that haven't been touched since invoicing, these numbers should be within a penny of each other — a small difference from rounding is normal. A bigger difference usually means orders were edited after invoicing. Both totals represent the same orders; a difference of a few cents is a normal artifact of how decimal rounding works across many line items — the same way a column of numbers added on a calculator can differ by a penny from a spreadsheet sum. A large discrepancy (dollars, not cents) would indicate a data issue worth investigating.

Q: I changed a customer's tax-exempt flag and my report changed for prior months — is that right?

A: Yes — this report reflects the current state of each order. If you want a snapshot of tax as it was billed, use the All Invoices report's Tax column instead. The Sales Tax report is designed to give you the most up-to-date picture based on current data.

Q: An invoice I expect to see isn't showing up.

A: A few common reasons:

• The order might be outside your date filter range.
• The order might not satisfy your Paid Status filter.
• In rare cases, an order with a missing tax configuration is silently excluded. Open the order and check that a tax configuration is assigned on the Tax settings.

Tips for Getting the Most Out of This Report

• Always apply a date filter first. The report opens showing all-time data — even though the filter panel displays the current month. Pick a period before you trust the numbers.
• Use the "Taxes Owed" card as a sanity check. If it's meaningfully different from "Taxes Collected," you likely have a mix of tax-exempt customers or individually toggled line items. That may be intentional, but it's worth a quick review.
• Compare with your point-of-sale or invoice records. Pick a single invoiced order from the filter window, open it, and confirm its Tax row on the Invoice tab matches what you'd expect. If one order checks out, the whole total usually does too.
• Canadian shops: use the sub-values. The GST, HST, and PST sub-values on the cards are what you file against. Ignore the US-style headline if your shop is Canada-only.
• If two tax numbers differ slightly across reports, don't worry. A few cents of difference across many orders is a normal rounding artifact. Investigate only if the gap is dollars.

Still have questions? Feel free to reach out to us through the chat icon. Thanks for reading!