Typical shopping flow that involves tax computation

This topic provides the sequence of events in a typical shopping flow that involves tax computation and updates.

The sequence of events in a typical shopping flow that involves tax computation and updates are as follows:
  1. In an Order capturing UI, a shopper adds items to the cart.
  2. Order capturing application connects to Sterling Order Management System Software to create a draft order.
  3. The order total, which includes the item price and discounts, if any is displayed to the shopper.
  4. The shopper checks out the shopping cart.
  5. The order capturing application reaches out to a tax provider system with the default ShipFrom address (fulfillment center or store address) to get the estimated taxes. The order capturing application may have a service to communicate to the external system and compute tax, or it may invoke a service exposed in Sterling Order Management System Software for the same purpose.
  6. The total amount, including the order total and tax amount is displayed to the shopper.
  7. The shopper clicks Next to enter the payment information.
  8. The order capturing application connects to Sterling Order Management System Software to reserve the ordered item.
  9. Sterling Order Management System Software confirms the reservation and return the ship node from where the item will be shipped.
  10. The shopper enters payment details and clicks Submit.
  11. The order capturing application submits order details along with the tax information to Sterling Order Management System Software.
  12. Sterling Order Management System Software updates the tax on the order or order line, confirms the order and sends shipment to the ship node.
  13. The shipment is shipped from the node.
  14. To recalculate tax, Sterling Order Management System Software again connects to the tax provider by using a user exit
  15. Sterling Order Management System Software creates invoice and accesses the payment gateway for settlement.
  16. Sterling Order Management System Software moves the order to paid status.
  17. Sterling Order Management System Software connects to the tax provider by using another user exit to report the collected taxes.
In this order flow, the tax provider system is contacted multiple times as follows:
  • By the order capturing application to display the estimated taxes to the shopper when the order is created.
  • By Sterling Order Management System Software after the shipment is sent but before the invoice is created upon notification of the shipment of goods to get the updated taxes in case of any change in ship from address or tax rate.
  • By Sterling Order Management System Software after payment for the invoice is settled to create an audit record and report the actual taxes collected.