Tax rate changes (e.g. new HST tax)

Canada is implementing a new single "HST" tax rate soon which will replace the old tax rates, so you may need to accommodate that in Campground Master.  Here is how you can do that, and the same procedure can be used to implement any other new tax rate.

First of all, resist the temptation to just rename or delete the previous tax categories or tax rate entries -- you need those for prior reporting and to keep existing reservations from becoming corrupted.  What you need to do is add a new tax rate for HST, and enable that for your Rates.

First go to Maintenance / Pick Lists / Transaction Categories.  Check "Allow editing...", and Add a new record for the HST tax (or Insert it above the GST, if you like).

Then, add HST as a new tax under Park Setup / Taxes.  Don't replace the others, just use the next empty slot.  You probably don't want to check the "Default" option until the day it takes effect.  This won't affect the Rates, but if you add Charges or Discounts manually, it determines whether that tax option is selected by default -- so change the Default selections only after the new tax rate is in effect.

If you also have Rates set up, you need to change the tax selection in them.  To change the Rates to use the new tax (in Park Setup / Rates), Edit each rate definition and change the "Auto-add tax" checkboxes to add HST instead of the other taxes.

You can either wait until the day the new tax takes effect to change the rates, or you can make a new copy of all of your rates that need the tax rate changes and make the new rates take effect automatically after the change date by using the Season Dates Applicable, similar to preparing rates for a new year as described in this article:

http://campgroundmaster.com/news/changingratesforthenewyea.html

There are advantages to doing it as a 2nd copy, especially for auto-rates and/or if you add charges before they check in, since setting it up with "season dates" will ensure that the rates take effect based on the dates of the stay rather than when you add the charges.  So this is the recommended method, however it is more time consuming.