Group
  • Payments

    Set up sales tax and VAT before I charge anyone

    Adds automatic tax calculation to the checkout flow and makes invoices show tax correctly per jurisdiction.

    • Plan & validate
    • Improve quality
    • Advanced
    • General

Free Prompt

My app charges customers but does not handle sales tax or VAT. Set up automatic tax calculation using my payment provider's tax tooling (Stripe Tax if I use Stripe, or the equivalent for my provider). 1. Enable and configure: turn on automatic tax in the provider dashboard, register my business's tax jurisdictions, and set my default product tax code (digital goods/SaaS, not physical goods). 2. Checkout integration: update my checkout/payment flow so the provider calculates tax automatically at purchase time based on the customer's location. Collect the billing address fields the provider needs for that calculation. 3. Subscriptions: make sure recurring charges also apply automatic tax, including how the provider handles a customer's address changing mid-subscription. 4. Display: show tax as a separate line item in my checkout summary and on receipts/invoices, so customers see subtotal, tax, and total rather than a surprise number. 5. Records: make sure the tax amount per transaction is stored or retrievable for reporting, since I will need it when filing in each jurisdiction. Do not try to calculate tax myself with hardcoded rates; rates and rules change constantly and vary by jurisdiction. Do not change my prices; decide with me whether prices are tax-inclusive or tax-exclusive and make it consistent. Give me: the configuration steps for the provider dashboard, the code changes for checkout and subscriptions, and a test using the provider's test mode to verify tax appears for customers in different regions.

What This Does / How This Helps

Wires automatic tax calculation into your checkout so the right sales tax or VAT gets collected per customer location, with clean line items on receipts. Tax is the payment problem founders discover at the worst time, usually when an accountant asks where the VAT records are. Digital products are taxable in a growing list of jurisdictions, the thresholds and rates differ everywhere, and hand-rolling rate tables is a losing game. The prompt uses your payment provider's tax engine instead of DIY rate math, covers both one-time and subscription charges, and makes sure the per-transaction tax records exist for filing time.

Want to skip doing this by hand?

Fortivibe audits your app for all of the areas these prompts cover (and more).

See What We Check

Related Prompts