Tax certificates
Termpact keeps each company location’s tax-exemption certificates, reminds you and the buyer before one expires, and never removes an exemption without you.
Open Customers, pick a location, then Tax exemption. The store owner, admins and credit managers can upload certificates and remove exemptions; everyone else can see them.
Uploading a certificate
Section titled “Uploading a certificate”Add:
- the file: PDF, JPG, PNG or HEIC, up to 10 MB
- the jurisdiction, as a country code or a country and region code:
US,US-CA,CA-QC - the certificate number (optional). It’s stored encrypted; only the last four characters are shown.
- the expiry date, if it has one
- the exemptions it covers, as Shopify exemption codes (for example
US_CA_RESELLER_EXEMPTION). Leave this empty if it covers all of the location’s exemptions.
Every file is checked before anyone can open it: its contents must match its type, and it’s scanned for viruses. A file that fails is deleted and marked Rejected; upload it again.
Certificates an applicant attaches to a trade account application are added to the new location when the application is approved. Add their expiry date afterwards.
Uploading a certificate doesn’t change the location’s tax settings in Shopify. Set the exemption itself on the company location in Shopify, or when you approve the application.
Reminders
Section titled “Reminders”Every morning, in your store’s time zone, Termpact checks expiry dates:
- 30 days before a certificate expires, it’s marked Expires soon. You get an email, and so do the location’s Location admin contacts, asking for a renewed certificate.
- After the expiry date, it’s marked Expired. You get one email, and a banner shows on the location’s tax certificates page.
When a certificate expires
Section titled “When a certificate expires”The location stays tax-exempt in Shopify. You decide what happens next:
- Upload renewal — add the new file and expiry date to the same certificate. It goes back to Active and the exemption is untouched.
- Remove exemption — after you confirm, Termpact removes the certificate’s exemptions from the location in Shopify, so new orders are taxed. Exemptions that another valid certificate still covers are kept, and so is the location’s tax-exempt setting while any such certificate remains.
Every upload, renewal and removal is recorded in the activity log, with who confirmed the removal.
How long files are kept
Section titled “How long files are kept”Certificate files are deleted 24 months after they were last opened or used.