Tax engine comparison - Zenskar Documentation

A plan, contract, or product’s Tax feature has three Tax Type options: Manual, Avalara, and Anrok. This page covers what each supports, how they differ, and how Zenskar’s mechanics work for each. For setup steps, see Avalara AvaTax and Anrok.

The comparison

Manual vs Avalara

	Manual	Avalara
What you set on the feature	A flat percentage	An Avalara tax code
Rate	The percentage you enter	Computed from the tax code, the ship-from and ship-to addresses, and your Avalara nexus
Tax detail on the invoice	The single percentage, applied to the line	Avalara’s state, county, city, and special-jurisdiction amounts, summed into the line’s tax
Addresses	Not used	Required. Behavior on an address Avalara can’t resolve is configurable: fail generation, ignore tax if non-taxable, or ignore tax and generate
Customer exemption	Not applicable	`exempt_tax`, `tax_exemption_number`, and `entity_use_code` are sent on every transaction
Draft and preview	Calculated locally	Calls Avalara for an estimate each time the amount is shown
On approval	Nothing leaves Zenskar	Recorded as a committed AvaTax transaction
Credit notes	The percentage is reversed locally	A refund is reported against the original transaction
One connection covers	Not applicable	One Zenskar business entity and one Avalara company
Availability	Always available	Available to any organization

Manual vs Anrok

	Manual	Anrok
What you set on the feature	A flat percentage	An Anrok tax category, picked live from your connected Anrok account (no Zenskar-side category or mapping step)
Rate	The percentage you enter	Computed from the tax category, the addresses, and your Anrok nexus
Tax detail on the invoice	The single percentage, applied to the line	Anrok’s per-jurisdiction (nexus-level) amounts, summed into the line’s tax
Addresses	Not used	Required. Behavior on an address Anrok can’t resolve is fixed: always ignore tax and generate the invoice
Customer exemption	Not applicable	The customer’s tax ID is sent on every transaction; a valid EU VAT ID triggers reverse charge. No exemption-number field; exemptions are set directly in Anrok, found by searching for the customer there by name or email (the internal ID Zenskar sends isn’t shown anywhere in Zenskar’s UI)
Draft and preview	Calculated locally	Calls Anrok for an estimate each time the amount is shown
On approval	Nothing leaves Zenskar	Recorded as an Anrok transaction (no separate commit step)
Credit notes	The percentage is reversed locally	A full credit note negates the original transaction; a partial one is a new, negative, pro-rated transaction
One connection covers	Not applicable	One Zenskar business entity and one Anrok account
Availability	Always available	Enabled only for organizations Zenskar has turned it on for; otherwise shown disabled, marked “coming soon”

You can mix all three: set the tax feature to Manual on some plans, contracts, or products, Avalara on others, and Anrok on others.

Mechanics and constraints

Constraint	Detail
Anrok is gated	The Anrok card under Integrations is always shown, but enabled only for organizations Zenskar has turned it on for; otherwise it’s disabled and marked “coming soon.” Avalara has no such gate.
One connection, one entity	Both engines bind one connection to one Zenskar business entity (and, for Avalara, one company). Billing another entity through the same engine needs another connection.
Disconnecting the connected engine blocks affected invoices	Any plan, contract, or product whose Tax feature still names the disconnected engine fails invoice generation outright, with an actionable error naming the engine, not a silent zero-tax fallback. Reconnect the engine, or change the Tax feature to Manual or the other connected engine, then re-publish and regenerate.
Anrok needs a resolvable product per line	A tax feature Anrok can’t attach to a single product (for example, on a bundle) is refused when the plan or contract is published. Avalara has no equivalent restriction.
Multiple Anrok connections don’t fully work yet	If more than one Anrok connection exists, the Tax Category picker used across the product and pricing UI reads categories from only the first one created.
Silent zero tax is the most common failure for both engines	Same underlying reason: a jurisdiction you haven’t registered for. Avalara returns $0 tax with no error; Anrok marks the line “not collecting.” See each engine’s own page for the specific warning.

Where to go next

Engine	Setup guide
Avalara	Avalara AvaTax: connect Avalara and assign a tax code.
Anrok	Anrok: connect Anrok and assign a tax category.