5 Tips for Making End-of-Year Direct Shipping Reporting Easier
'Tis the season to tally orders! Each year, January is a perfect storm of reporting with up to 79 different due dates for monthly, quarterly and annual tax and shipping reports, 50% more than a more typical monthly load average of 53.
This January brings up to 21 new* (or significantly more complex) reports over last January, depending on how many states (and cities) to which a winery ships. Some of these reports require extensive information that is not typically stored on an individual order basis and must be collected and tied to each shipment.
ShipCompliant offers these tips for making your end of year reporting season a bit brighter:
- Start Early. Many annual reports require detailed information not always stored with your order information such as tracking numbers, dates of birth, and label identifiers (TTB IDs/COLA Numbers). Gathering that information now and collating with shipments can only help reporting go more smoothly.
- Store Tracking Numbers with your Orders. In particular, Missouri’s end of year report requires each tracking number to be listed with its respective shipment.
- Store Label IDs with Product Information. For example, New York’s semi-annual report due in July and January requires the ‘TTB ID’ from the Certificate of Label Approval (COLA) of each bottle shipped to a consumer in New York.
- Collect and Store Date of Birth (DOB) with Shipping Orders. States such as Wisconsin and Michigan require you to report the DOB of the purchaser and recipient of each shipment into their state.
- Collect Orders & Submit Reports Electronically. North Dakota, New York and Wisconsin now require you to submit your summary report and listing of invoices electronically. Other states offer it as a more convenient option than sending paper.
- Know what you are spending by manually completing these reports. Your time is precious, especially around the holidays. Estimate the time these reports (and your normal monthly reports) will take you, and then consider letting ShipCompliant do the reporting for you; just print, sign and send. Its not too late to sign up and get those reports completed for January.
Use this button to contact a ShipCompliant sales person and get started automating your 2008 reports:
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If you are already a ShipCompliant customer, please click here for a detailed white paper on end of the year reporting.
New (or more complex) Reports for January 2009
There are a few different scenarios that would add new reports to a winery's workload for end-of-year reporting.Change in rules means more wineries can ship there, and need to fill out forms:
- Georgia - A change to Georgia's direct shipping policies removed the direct shipping restriction on wineries who have a distributor relationship in the state. Wineries new to shipping offsite orders to Georgia have 2 additional reports to submit this January, one for sales tax and one for excise tax and reporting.
- Ohio - An increase in the capacity cap on how much a winery can produce and still ship to Ohio means some wineries were able to ship to Ohio for the first time in 2008 and will have to submit 3 reports; sales tax, excise tax, and Cuyahoga county specific excise tax.
Change in rules requires new reports:
- Wisconsin - Wisconsin changed to a limited state this year with a new direct shipping permit and accompanying reporting requirements. Another change occured (effective October 1) requiring electronic filing for reporting wine shipments into Wisconsin.
- Illinois - Illinois also became a permit state this year, adding two more reports to the list, one for sales tax and one for reporting shipments.
- Ohio - Ohio appeared in the list above due to new wineries being able to ship there, and appears in this list due to a change in frequency of excise tax reports from quarterly to annual, and 2008 being the first full year covered by the annual report of shipments.
- Missouri - 2008 is the first year where the required annual report will cover more than a quarter's worth of shipmentts. Judging by the detailed scrutiny of last year's reports, this one deserves particular attention.
- Oregon - Yet another state turning to permit status in 2008 and adding a report to the list.
Clarification in rules means more reports due:
- Arizona - Requirements around 13 'non-program city' reports were clarified this year (and mean more reports).
New format requires more information:
- New York - As of July 1st, 2008 New York's semi-annual shipping report is required to be filed electronically, and requires new pieces of information about shipments.
