Set tax, payment methods and guest checkout

Set how tax is worked out on your orders, which payment methods your checkout offers, and whether customers need an account to order. All of it lives on the Commerce tab of your settings, and this article goes through every field on it.

The Commerce tab

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The tab has two cards: Tax, and Checkout payments with the guest checkout options beneath it.

Save changes saves every tab of Settings at once, not only this one. Changing these settings needs the Edit settings permission, which only the Store owner role has out of the box. See staff roles.

Tax rate

Tax rate (%) is the percentage of tax on your orders: type 16 for 16%. It can be anything from 0 to 100, with up to two decimal places, such as 7.5.

• 0, or blank, means no tax. Your orders carry no tax line, and blank saves as 0. A new store starts at 0.
• Any other rate is applied at checkout, the way the two boxes below say.

The rate applies to orders placed after you save. An order already placed keeps the tax it was placed with, so its total and its invoice never change.

Which rate applies to your business is a question for your accountant or the tax authority, not something we can set for you.

Prices already include tax

This box says whether the prices you enter on your products already contain the tax.

Ticked: your prices are what the customer pays, and the tax is the part inside them. This is how Jordanian shelf prices usually work. For example, Layal sells the Terracotta linen shirt dress at JOD 49.000 with a 16% rate:

• the customer pays JOD 49.000;
• of which JOD 6.759 is tax (49.000 × 16 ÷ 116);
• the checkout summary notes Includes tax, and the invoice states the tax under the total, as Includes Tax (16%) 6.759 JOD.

Unticked: the tax is added on top of your prices at checkout. The same dress:

• costs JOD 49.000, plus JOD 7.840 tax;
• so the customer pays JOD 56.840 for the dress, before delivery;
• the checkout summary and the invoice show a separate Tax line.

Either way, a discount comes off before tax is worked out: tax follows what was actually sold.

Charge tax on shipping

Tick Charge tax on shipping to apply your tax rate to the shipping charge as well as to the items. The hint under it reminds you that most VAT systems tax shipping.

For example, on Layal's JOD 2.500 standard delivery in Amman at 16%:

• with Prices already include tax unticked, JOD 0.400 tax is added on the shipping;
• with it ticked, JOD 0.345 of the 2.500 is tax, and the customer pays 2.500 as before.

Free shipping, from a free rate or a free-shipping discount code, carries no tax. With the rate at 0, this box changes nothing.

Your tax registration number on invoices

Tax / VAT registration number is optional, up to 50 characters. When you fill it in, it is printed in the header of every invoice, under your store's address and contact details, labelled Tax reg. no.: on an English invoice. Leave it blank and the line disappears.

The number is read when an invoice is made, so invoices you download after saving it show it, including invoices for older orders. See print packing slips and download invoices. Your store's address and contact details on the invoice come from the Store tab; see update your store's details.

Checkout payments: Cash on delivery and Card payments

Under Checkout payments, each payment method is a card with its own tick box. A ticked method is offered at your checkout, and its card is highlighted.

When both are ticked, customers choose at checkout, and cash on delivery is selected first. When only one is ticked, customers are not asked: they pay that way. See how customers pay you.

Card payments also need HyperPay turned on

Ticking Card payments on the Commerce tab says your store is willing to take cards. Customers see the card option only when your store is also able to:

• your HyperPay keys are saved on the Card payments page, confirmed by HyperPay, with the webhook secret, and
• Accept card payments at checkout is ticked on that page.

Until then, your checkout leaves the card option out, whatever this box says. See connect HyperPay for card payments.

On Free and Starter, the Card payments card on this tab is greyed out, its box is empty and cannot be ticked, and it carries the chip Included from a higher plan. Cash on delivery is how your customers pay. See plans and what each includes.

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Moving to Free or Starter, which do not include card payments? You do not need to change anything here first. On the day the change happens, we turn Card payments off and Cash on delivery (COD) on for you, and nothing else on this tab changes. Move back up to a plan with card payments and both go back to how you left them. See what happens to features the new plan leaves out.

At least one payment method must stay on

Your checkout needs at least one way to pay. As soon as no method is on, a red box under the two cards reads Turn on at least one payment method., and your settings cannot be saved until you tick one again.

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On Free and Starter the card method does not count, because it cannot be used, so Cash on delivery (COD) must stay ticked.

Card payments count only once they work. To untick Cash on delivery (COD), your HyperPay keys must be saved and confirmed by HyperPay, with the webhook secret, and Accept card payments at checkout ticked on the Card payments page. Until then, as soon as you untick it, a red box reads Cash on delivery can only be turned off once card payments are connected, confirmed by HyperPay and turned on in Card payments., and your settings cannot be saved. See connect HyperPay.

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Once cash on delivery is off, the Card payments page keeps your cards working: it refuses to pause card payments or remove the HyperPay keys until you turn cash on delivery back on here.

Guest checkout, and requiring an email

Allow guest checkout lets customers order without an account: they fill in their contact and delivery details at checkout, and that is all. It is ticked on a new store.

Untick it if you want every order to come from a customer with an account. Your storefront then asks customers who are not signed in to sign in before checkout, not after they have typed their address:

• In the cart and the cart drawer, the checkout button reads Sign in to check out and opens the sign-in page. Once they sign in, they go straight on to checkout.
• If they open the checkout page anyway, it shows a Sign in to check out panel instead of the form: This store asks customers to sign in before they check out. Signing in brings you straight back here. A new account needs its email address confirmed first; then sign in, and your cart will be waiting., with Sign in and Create account buttons.
• An order that still reaches us without a sign-in, for example from a checkout page opened before you changed the setting, is refused with This store asks you to sign in before checking out., in your storefront's language.

Require email at checkout refuses an order that has no email address, so every customer can receive their order emails. It is ticked on a new store. Your storefront's checkout asks every customer for an email in any case, because that is where the order confirmation goes, so unticking this box does not remove the email field. See emails your customers get about orders.

Guest checkout and blocked customers

Guest checkout is not a way round a block. When you block a customer, an order with the same email address or the same phone number as that customer is refused, as a guest or from another account. The customer sees only We could not place this order. Contact the store. It does not say they are blocked.

Someone who uses a different email address and a different phone number looks like a new customer to your store. See block or unblock a customer.

What the form refuses

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Tax / VAT registration number stops taking characters at 50, so it never shows an error.

Next, connect HyperPay if you sell by card, or see what your invoices show.