Overview

An order in TaxCloud is a finalized transaction that includes the full details of a sale such as the customer, origin and destination addresses, items sold, and the taxes applied. In a standard integration, orders are typically generated as part of the live checkout and capture process. However, there are scenarios where you need to upload pre-existing or historical orders that did not pass through the TaxCloud checkout flow.

If your system already manages order creation, such as through an ERP, a third-party marketplace, or a proprietary backend, you may not need to use TaxCloud’s real-time cart flow for each transaction. Instead, you can submit pre-existing orders directly to TaxCloud to ensure they are properly recorded for compliance and tax remittance purposes.

Once uploaded, these orders are visible in your TaxCloud account and will be included in reporting, filing, or audit workflows unless you explicitly mark them as exempt from filing. This flow gives you full control over the final transaction data and is especially useful for syncing systems or bulk migration of order records.

Why use this approach?

While the real-time flow remains ideal for accurate tax calculation, TaxCloud allows direct submission of orders via the orders endpoint. However, even in this simplified flow, you must construct a valid API payload with all required fields including items, customer, origin/destination, and TIC codes.

This approach is especially useful when:

• You already calculated taxes using another system.
• You want to upload finalized or pre-existing orders from marketplaces, legacy systems, or bulk imports to TaxCloud.
• You need to retroactively sync past orders for filing or audit purposes.

Real-time Calculation

If you’re creating new orders and want real-time tax calculation, use our Standard Checkout Flow instead to ensure proper tax calculation and exemption handling.

Core Endpoints

What to do next

This section helps you understand when to use this flow. In the next section, you’ll learn how to format and submit these pre-existing orders using the /orders endpoint.

Important: Before using the workflow, ensure that pre-existing orders have not already been submitted or converted. Submitting duplicate transactions may result in compliance errors or tax filing discrepancies.