@C_Billings well actually more of a better understanding of the way Avatax handles tax exempt transactions. I understand that you can configure the customer and/or the item record to be tax exempt but for the most part those records aren’t always going to be tax exempt. Only certain transactions would be tax exempt like for example you are sending samples to a customer. I know that you can, say on a sales order or cash sale on the item sublist, you can select -Non Taxable- option for the tax code to force Avatax to not calculate tax. But is there a way though to “tell Avatax” that the particular order or transaction should be non-taxable without going through the exercise of say going through each item on the item sublist and setting each one to -Non Taxable-? I also see a custom record that looks like you can configure it for exemptions but don’t see any records in that custom record in our environment. Is it supposed to be used the way I perceive its use? If so, how does it relate to the customer-specific fields that deal with tax exemptions?

So this probably (2015) still applies but no promises...in NetSuite you would assign an AVATAX code to your items and those map to categories in the AVATAX engine. You would assign those AVATAX codes to be exempt or not in particular jurisdictions...most of the heavy lifting is done on the admin side of avalara and not netsuite. you will need the internal ID of your netsuite customer as well since it is one of the key parts to match the exemption.

@C_Billings thanks for shedding light on that custom record. So in essence we can set up an avatax code that can be used against those transactions identified as being exempt?

There are a lot of data points to pivot and create an exemption. From the sounds of things you need to read more of avalaras literature and get their "best practice" for exemptions. Tax exemptions shouldnt be taken lightly when automating. If you blow it the auditor that catches you will nail you with fines large enough to wish you took the time to get it perfect