In MarginEdge, you can set both individual products and entire categories to be Tax-Exempt by default. This can be helpful for ensuring that any taxes on an invoice only get applied to the correct products and categories expenses. Below is a video overview as well as a step by step walk-through. And at the very end is an explanation of why you might see "Sales Tax on Consumables".
Note that when you set a category to tax-exempt, it will only apply to new products that are created after you save this change. Any existing products in that category that were not already set to tax-exempt will need to be changed on the product level.
To adjust your settings regarding how miscellaneous fees and taxes get applied, see this article: Handling Taxes, Delivery and other Miscellaneous Charges
And remember, taxes don't affect the product price, just the total category expense!
Video : Changing Products & Categories
Step-by-Step : Changing Products Individually and in Bulk
1. Find the product you want and open, click "Edit Product"
2. Check the box "Product should be tax exempt"
3. Click to SAVE
PRODUCTS IN BULK
To adjust the tax-exempt status of many products at once, you'll want to go to the Products page and select the ones you need to change. In this example, we're going to adjust all Wine products to be tax-exempt.
1. Go to Products > View All Products, and adjust the filter under "Category Type" to select "Wine"
2. Use the checkbox shown on the left above all products in order to select everything at once.
3. Click on "Update Products" and select "Update Tax Exempt Status"
4. In this example, we are setting all selected products to "Tax Exempt" and click "Update Products"
Step-by-Step : Changing a Category
2. For quick sorting to help you find the category you want, you can click on the "Category Type" column header
3. Find the category you want to edit - in this example it's liquor - then click in the "Default to tax exempt" column and double click to change to "Yes"
4. Don't forget to click "Save Changes"!
Sales Tax on Consumables
So you've done your due diligence and marked the appropriate products and/or categories to be tax-exempt. Great job! But what happens if you upload an invoice and all products are tax-exempt, BUT you were still charged taxes?! This might happen if your sous chef ran to the grocery store to buy some last-minute produce. The grocery store would charge you taxes, but the product would all be tax-exempt in [me].
In this instance, we cannot leave the taxes in the boxes under Miscellaneous Fees since there are no products to apply it to. Instead, we must add it as a line item on the invoice itself. We will create both a product AND a category called "Sales Tax on Consumables" (and they will also be tax-exempt) for you. You can map this category to whatever might be best for you in your accounting system, if for example, you want to track these extra taxes over the course of the year.
Instead of seeing the taxes within the category like this:
You will see the new product and category is created because all products are now tax-exempt: