Reporting taxable sales

NOTE: This information has been updated and added to the documentation under Taxes Setup (https://campgroundmaster.com/help/taxessetup.html).  Refer to that for current information.

Original article:

Q: How do I get a report of taxable and non-taxable sales, e.g. for our quarterly sales tax returns?

A: Because it doesn't keep track of which amounts were taxed, there isn't a specific report for this.  Here are 2 ways you can get taxable sales information:

1. Use a category report ("Charges by Category" or "Receipts by Category") to get categorized sales, and total up the categories that are taxable for each tax rate.  This of course requires that you set up your categories such that it's clear which are taxable and which are non-taxable, for each tax authority.  For instance if you tax cabins one way and tents another, then don't just use the default "Daily Rate" category in all of your daily rates.  Set up a "Cabin daily" category and a "Tent daily" category, and use them accordingly (see Pick Lists / Transaction Categories).

2. Use the category report as above, then calculate backwards from the tax categories shown (divide by the tax rate as a decimal number).  For instance if Sales Tax shows $100 collected and your sales tax rate is 5%, then the taxable sales for that is $100 divided by .05, which is $2000.  Of course this may not exactly match your sales, since the individual sales are rounded, but it should be close -- also be aware that it's based on tax actually collected, whether you collected the appropriate amount or not, so it assumes that your tax options and rates are configured properly.

IMPORTANT: Do NOT use the "Taxes by Tax Category" report unless your accounting is accrual-based and tax liability is according to when you take the reservation, or if you're entering (or auto-calculating) charges/taxes only when the customer checks in or pays in full.  Like "Charges by Category", "Taxes by Tax Category" reports tax amounts as of when they're entered in Campground Master -- so unless you're using Campground Master in the "recommended" way (entering no charges until the customer checks in and/or pays), this will show taxes sooner than they're due.  If your accounting is cash-based and you want to report tax as it's collected (paid), use the "Receipts by Category" report in the procedures above.