Tax rates
How Rowie applies tax to orders and where to configure it for your organisation and each venue.
Rowie applies tax based on the location of each sale, with an organisation-wide default as the fallback. Both are configured from the Organization page in the vendor portal.
Set the organisation default tax rate
- In the vendor portal, click Organization in the sidebar (Account group).
- Scroll past the Locations card to the org-level fields.
- Find the row labelled DEFAULT TAX RATE (the label is uppercased visually. The underlying value is "Default Tax Rate"). It shows the current value,
0%until you set one. - Click the small pencil Edit icon next to the value. A numeric input appears inline.
- Enter the rate as a percentage (e.g.
8.25for 8.25%, not0.0825) and click Save. - This rate applies to every location that hasn't set its own override.
Set a per-location tax rate
The per-location tax rate lives inside the Edit location modal, not as a direct field on the location tile:
- Go to Organization in the sidebar.
- In the Locations card, click the pencil (Edit location) icon on the venue you want to change.
- The Edit location modal opens. Scroll to Tax rate (%). The helper text reads "Applied to orders, sessions, and preorders settled at this location. Leave empty to use your organization's default rate."
- Type the rate (e.g.
9.5) and click Save. - New sales at that location use this rate. Sales at locations without an override fall back to the org-level DEFAULT TAX RATE.
Adding a new location? The Add location modal has the same Tax rate (%) field, so you can set the venue's rate at creation time.
If neither a location override nor the organisation default is set, sales are tax-free.
How it's applied
Tax is calculated on the subtotal, not the tip:
subtotal = sum(item.price × item.qty)
tax_amount = subtotal × (tax_rate / 100)
tip_amount = chosen tip (% of subtotal, or flat)
total_amount = subtotal + tax_amount + tip_amount
The POS shows each line on the checkout screen. Customers see the tax breakdown on the emailed receipt and the Stripe transaction record.
Frozen at session open
A subtle but important detail: when a session is opened (or the first round is sent to a table), the tax rate at that moment is frozen on the session. If you change the location's tax rate mid-shift, already-open tabs and table sessions keep the rate they were opened at. New sessions get the new rate.
This protects you from re-quoting customers mid-meal and keeps reports clean. Every order's tax amount matches what the customer was shown when they ordered.
Zero-tax setups
Some businesses are tax-exempt or operate in tax-free regions. Set the location's tax rate to 0 (or leave the organisation default at 0 and don't set a per-location override). The POS hides the tax row when the effective rate is zero.
VAT and inclusive pricing
Rowie's current tax model is additive: displayed prices are pre-tax, and tax is added at checkout. If you need VAT-inclusive pricing (common in the EU/UK), set product prices to the gross amount and leave the tax rate at 0. VAT-inclusive mode is on the roadmap.