• Several carriers provide live rate registration. You can register with these services to receive live shipping rates from your preferred carriers by clicking Show registration information within that carrier’s tab and following the instructions provided.

More Settings & Rate Testing

More Shipping Settings allows you to configure global settings for your shipping rates calculations, such applying tax to all shipping.

You can also test your shipping settings by clicking Test Shipping Rates. 

Configure Tax Settings

Depending on your location, you may be required to charge your customers certain taxes on goods and services. Whether this is state sales tax, consumption tax, or VAT, you can configure your store to automatically process tax charges for various regions and locales. This article will guide you through configuring tax settings in Winter ‘09 and show you other tax-related functions featured in the Volusion system.

The Volusion tax wizard makes configuration of the basic elements of your tax settings simple. In your admin area, click Settings >> Tax.

• Within the wizard, you’ll see a tax table that contains current tax rules for your store.

• Click Edit next to any tax rule to alter it, or click Add near the top of the table to add a new rule.

• You can also specify whether or not you are based in the United States using the radio option at the top of the wizard.

For US Based Merchants

• Your store’s tax rate is set to the state of California by default.

• If you wish to charge tax to customers in other states, click Add to add new tax rates or Edit to change the existing record.

• You can enter a 5-digit zip code to apply the tax setting to a specific area within the state.

• Enter a name for your tax rate in the Base Tax Title field and enter a numeric value into the accompanying rate text box to define your tax rate. For example, enter 7.85 into this field if your region’s sales tax rate is 7.85%.

• Click Save when finished.  

• Note that the Tax page is configured for a store based in the United States by default. If your store isn’t based in the United States, click No on the Are you based in the United States? option. 

• You’ll notice a new dropdown menu within the wizard to configure storefront display types for VAT and GST taxes. These tax types are applicable to some countries such as the UK, Canada and Australia. You can also access these options by clicking Advanced Edit >> Settings.

• Click Add to open a new section below the Tax Settings section. Here, set the Region Country to which you’d like to apply the tax and choose the state/province. Set the Base Tax Title (the name of the tax as it displays to your customers) and the actual rate of the tax charged.

• If you’ve enabled VAT or GST taxes, you’ll also have a Second Tax Title field. You can configure these settings to govern how VAT or other taxes behave. We’ll discuss this in more detail later in the manual. 
  

• Click Save to apply your settings.

• If you need to further configure your store’s tax rates or charge tax for multiple regions, postal codes or states/provinces, click Add to continue with configuration.

Note that, for every region or location for which you want to collect tax, you’ll have to create an individual rule. Fortunately, Volusion sets no limit on the number of tax rules you can configure. This means the system can support a multitude of tax requirements.

Importing Tax Settings

If your store requires many different tax rules, you can use Settings >> Import/Export to add them quickly to your tax table.

To begin, make sure at least one entry exists in your tax table and use the export wizard to export your store’s tax table to a CSV file. You can then edit this file within the spreadsheet application of your choice, such as Microsoft Excel.

You can quickly modify the exported CSV file to include additional tax rules. When finished, save your file, then use the Import Wizard to update your store’s tax table.

There are several additional tax settings you may need to become familiar with, especially if you plan to sell tax-exempt products or make other special tax arrangements and exceptions. For information on the complete list of tax settings, check out the “Tax” chapter of the “Advanced Settings” section of this manual.

Set Payment Types

Before opening your store to customers, you’ll need to configure your payment settings, including which payment methods you plan to accept and how you plan to process them.

Click Settings >> Payment in your admin area.

This page is divided into three major sections: Accepted Payment, Gateways and Credit Card Storage Policies. More advanced settings will be discussed in the “Advanced Features” and “Tips and Tricks” sections of this manual.

Under the Accepted Payment heading, simply click the checkbox next to your preferred payment method(s) to enable that option for your customers and click Save at the bottom.

The Other option un-hides additional options.

Your first major store operations decision will be which electronic payment gateway to use for processing credit and debit cards. Ideally, you’ll want a payment gateway that operates in the same region as your business, provides many features (e.g. authorizing, capturing, crediting and voiding payments) and is known for functional stability.

For US-based merchants, Volusion Merchant Services provides a full-featured, stable and affordable payment acceptance platform with the Skipjack gateway. Click the link in the Payment Gateways section to learn more, or visit this page.

For merchants based outside the US, or US merchants who wish to use a different payment gateway, there are many options available. Please review the following link for more information on all supported gateways

For further questions or concerns regarding payment gateway integration, contact Volusion Technical Support.  

Once you’ve decided which payment gateway to use, configuration is simple:

• In the admin area, click Settings >> Payment.
• Under the Payment Gateways heading, select which country your business is based in from the Merchant Gateway Country dropdown menu.

• Select the gateway from the Merchant Gateway Name menu.  Note that this menu will only display gateways associated with the country chosen in the previous dropdown menu. For US merchants not using Volusion Merchant Services, choose Other.
• Selection-specific fields will appear. You will obtain this information from your gateway provider after registration. Please see this article for specifics about individual supported gateway.
• Click Save at the bottom.

If you choose to offer electronic checks as a payment method, choose your provider from the Electronic Checks Gateway Name list. Once you make your selection, the relevant integration fields will appear. Make sure to enable Electronic Check in the Accepted Payment section above.

Volusion is a fully PCI Complaint ecommerce platform. Online data security has become an industry essential that Volusion takes very seriously. That’s why each of our stores comes pre-configured with the highest level of PCI security and compliance standards. These standards and best practices are set forth by the Payment Card Industry Security Consortium.  Your store’s method of authorizing, capturing and storing credit card data is already pre-configured based on these guidelines. As such, the majority of Winter ‘09 merchants won’t have to adjust these settings. They are available to you, however, in the event that your business model or payment gateway provider requires adjustment. If you uncheck Use most secure settings, you’ll have even more options

For in-depth information on this portion of Winter ‘09, please see the “Advanced Settings” portion of this manual, which will be up upon general release of Winter '09

Volusion stores come configured to display prices in US dollars by default, but if you need to accept other forms of currency based on your business location or the scope of your customer base, you can set up additional currencies by clicking Settings >> Currency in your admin area.

• Click Edit next to the default table entry, or Add to create a new one. 

• In Currency Name, enter the currency name as you would like it to display for customers.

• In Currency Symbol, enter the text character that displays next to your pricing (e.g. “£” for GBP).
• In Exchange Rate, set the numeric value of the currency unit as it compares to the US Dollar (e.g. if the British Pound is currently worth $1.60, simply enter 1.6 this field).
• Check Default? to make this currency the default currency for your store.
• Click Save to apply your entry.

Configuring multiple currencies within Volusion is easy; just repeat the above steps to add another currency type. Note that Volusion can display multiple currency types, but the cart will only collect payment in the default currency type.

Example

If you're a merchant based in the United Kingdom and you sell both domestically and to other parts of Europe, you can enable British Pounds as the primary currency, but also display prices in Euros. To configure Winter '09 for this scenario or for another like it, please see the "Advanced Settings" portion of this manual.