Before you begin¶
Most of the setup work is in your TaxCloud account, not in Magento. Do it first — the extension cannot calculate anything until TaxCloud knows who you are, where you are, and where you collect.
1. Create your TaxCloud account¶
Create an account at taxcloud.com and choose the service level you want. New accounts get a free testing period, so you can prove the integration works before you are paying for it.
2. Set your account up¶
Sign in to TaxCloud and work through these three. All of them are under Settings.
Add your store. Settings → Stores. If your Magento store is not listed, click Add Store and follow the prompts.
Add your business locations. Settings → Locations → Add Location. Register every physical presence you have in the US — shops, warehouses, distribution centres, offices. This is not optional bookkeeping: several states decide what you owe based on where you operate from, so a missing warehouse means wrong tax.
Choose your tax states. Settings → Tax States. You get a map of the United States; click the states where you want to collect sales tax.
Choosing states is a decision about your business
Collect in a state where you are not registered and you are holding tax you have no way to remit. Fail to collect in a state where you have nexus and you owe it out of your own pocket. If you are unsure where you have nexus, ask TaxCloud — working out where you have crossed a threshold is one of the things they do.
3. Get your credentials¶
Which credentials you need depends on which API you will use. New installations use V3 REST, so unless you are an existing customer with V1 credentials already in hand, that is the one you want. See Choosing your API if you need to decide.
In your TaxCloud dashboard:
- Connection ID — Integrations → Custom API. A long identifier that
looks like
25eb9b97-5acb-492d-b720-c03e79cf715a. Required. - API Key — Developer → API. Optional. Skip it unless you already have V1 credentials you would rather not use.
The connection decides test versus production
Whether the transactions you send count as real, filable sales is a property of the connection, set in TaxCloud — not something you switch in Magento. Use a test connection while you are setting up, and swap in the production one when you go live.
- API ID and API Key — the pair from your TaxCloud account.
These still work, and they also work if you later move to V3 REST: the extension exchanges them for you.
4. Check what you have in Magento¶
Two things on the Magento side need to be true before tax can be calculated at all.
Your origin address must be complete. Stores → Configuration → Sales → Shipping Settings → Origin, including the full ZIP+4. You will set this in Quick start, but if you do not know your ZIP+4, look it up now — the USPS ZIP Code lookup gives you the full nine digits from a street address.
You need admin access and someone who can run commands. Installing the extension is done from the command line. If that is not you, this is the point to line up your developer or hosting provider — see Installing the extension.
Checklist¶
Before moving on you should have:
- A TaxCloud account, with your store added
- Your business locations registered
- Your tax states selected
- Your Connection ID (or your V1 API ID and API Key) written down
- Your origin address, with ZIP+4
- A way to run commands on your Magento server
Next: Installing the extension.