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Manual Data Uploads

A guide on how to properly prepare and upload manual data for Numeral to include in your filings.

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Written by Numeral Engineering
Updated over 2 weeks ago

How do I know if I need to prepare manual data?

Manual data preparation is required if you have sales and tax information that Numeral is unable to retrieve from your connected stores, such as Shopify, Amazon, Walmart, or eBay.

Manual data upload steps

In order to provide manual data to Numeral, you’ll need to complete the following:

  1. In your Numeral Dashboard, go to the Sales section and click Upload Sales.

  2. Click Download CSV to obtain the properly formatted template.

  3. Enter your sales data into the provided template, ensuring the correct formatting:

    • Tip💡: Add a separate row for each Line Item in your orders to enable Numeral to report sales accurately for tax calculation.

  4. Save your file as a CSV format.

  5. Upload your file.

  6. Review any errors or warnings. Scroll below to see common errors, warnings, and fixes.

  7. Next, you’ll be able to see summaries of your upload on a state-by-state basis.

    1. The first screen shows Current Period Sales. This view shows filings that we will file in the current month. For example, if you upload on April 3, 2025, you’ll see summaries for your states that have filing periods for March 2025 and Q1 2025. If you’ve uploaded sales for a given period before, either in another file or in another month, those will show up as a part of the “New Total Sales”.

    2. The next view will show Ongoing Period Sales. This view shows filings that are still upcoming, but you may be uploading data for. For example, if you upload on March 3, 2025 for a Q1 2025 filing, you’ll see the subtotals for that filing, as the time period is still underway.

    3. The next view will show Past Period Sales. You should only see this if you’re doing a historical backfill. This will include sales for filings for which the period and due dates have passed.

    4. The final view is for Unregistered States. These summaries are for states in which you don’t yet have nexus. We’ll take note of these sales and make sure that we net you know once you reach nexus.

  8. If errors are found, correct them and re-upload the file, or click Next → Submit Sales once everything is correct.

Instructions for each column

Column A: Line_Item_ID

Format: Text

Required: Yes

Description: This is used to uniquely identify each line/transaction within the order. You can use any value that you want as long as it is unique. If your system tracks a unique item ID within each order, you can use that; i.e.: a “Line Item ID”. If you do not track that in your system, we recommend using the OrderID with an appended index number for the line item.

For example, if you have an order number 40309 and within this order there are 4 items, you can append the indexes such as: 40309-1, 40309-2, 40309-3, 40309-4.

Important ⚠ : If the same Item_ID is used more than once (even across different months), it will overwrite the previous entries.

Column B: Order_ID

Format: Text

Required: Yes

Description: The unique identifier for each order. If an order has multiple line items, repeat the Order_ID as needed. This helps us determine nexus by state.

Column C: Sales

Format: Number

Required: Yes

Description: The price of your product paid by the customer after any discounts, excluding tax.

Acceptable formats: 50.24, 34, 20.00, 0.45

Rejected format: $50,24

Tip💡: Format your sales numbers in Excel by selecting Column C, going to the Home tab, and selecting Number from the dropdown.

Column D: Total_Taxes

Format: Number

Required: Yes

Description: The amount of tax collected for the product.

Important ⚠️**:** Do not include currency symbols or commas in the number.

Tip💡**:** Format your total tax numbers in Excel by selecting Column D, go to the Home tab in Excel, and selecting Number from the dropdown.

Column E: Taxable

Format: Text

Required: Yes

Description: Indicates whether the product is taxable. Enter TRUE for taxable items and FALSE for non-taxable items.

Column F: Shipping_Address_State

Format: Text (2 letters only)

Required: Yes

Description: The state where the sale was allocated for tax purposes. This could be the delivery address for physical products or the billing address for digital products. If you used a physical POS location, it will be the state in which your POS location is located.

Tip 💡: Use the following state abbreviations for each state

  • Alabama - AL

  • Alaska - AK

  • Arizona - AZ

  • Arkansas - AR

  • California - CA

  • Colorado - CO

  • Connecticut - CT

  • Delaware - DE

  • Florida - FL

  • Georgia - GA

  • Hawaii - HI

  • Idaho - ID

  • Illinois - IL

  • Indiana - IN

  • Iowa - IA

  • Kansas - KS

  • Kentucky - KY

  • Louisiana - LA

  • Maine - ME

  • Maryland - MD

  • Massachusetts - MA

  • Michigan - MI

  • Minnesota - MN

  • Mississippi - MS

  • Missouri - MO

  • Montana - MT

  • Nebraska - NE

  • Nevada - NV

  • New Hampshire - NH

  • New Jersey - NJ

  • New Mexico - NM

  • New York - NY

  • North Carolina - NC

  • North Dakota - ND

  • Ohio - OH

  • Oklahoma - OK

  • Oregon - OR

  • Pennsylvania - PA

  • Rhode Island - RI

  • South Carolina - SC

  • South Dakota - SD

  • Tennessee - TN

  • Texas - TX

  • Utah - UT

  • Vermont - VT

  • Virginia - VA

  • Washington - WA

  • West Virginia - WV

  • Wisconsin - WI

  • Wyoming - WY

Column G: Shipping_Address_Zip

Format: Text

Required: Yes

Description: This is the zip code that corresponds to the Shipping_Address_State. If you have zip codes with leading zeroes ensure that your upload doesn’t trim off the first zero (Excel will often do this) by adding a ‘ character before the leading zero.

Acceptable formats: ‘02155, 02155-0001, 98103, ‘02155

Rejected formats: 2155, 021550001

Tip💡: Format your zip codes in Excel by selecting column G, go to the Home tab in Excel, select More Number Formats in the dropdown, go to Custom, type in 00000 in the Type field, click OK.

Column H: Transaction_Date

Format: Text (YYYY/MM/DD)

Required: Yes

Acceptable formats: 2024/07/30

Rejected format: 07/30/2024

Tip💡: Format your dates in Excel by selecting column H, go to the Home tab in Excel, select More Number Formats in the dropdown, go to Custom, type in YYYY/MM/DD in the Type field, click OK.

Column I : Shipping_Address_City

Format: Text. We will match these values to jurisdictions when doing your tax filings, so make sure that they are clean entries.

Required: Optional

Description: The city associated with the shipping address. This helps us match transactions to tax jurisdictions.

Acceptable formats: Boston, BOSTON, boston, Los Angeles, Oklahoma City

Rejected formats: Boston Sales Tax, City Sales Tax, Tax

Column J: Shipping_Address_Country

Format: Text

Required: Optional

Description: The country associated with the shipping address. This helps us match transactions to tax jurisdictions.

Column K: Shipping_Address_County

Format: Text

Required: Optional

Description: The county associated with the shipping address. This helps us match transactions to tax jurisdictions.

Acceptable formats: King County, KING COUNTY, KING, King

Rejected formats: County Sales Tax, King County Tax

Common Warning Messages

You will receive warning messages if there are -

Positive sales amount, but negative taxes

This generally can occur due to an error when exporting or formatting refunds. Uploading a line item with this value will likely lead to a discrepancy between tax collected and tax owed, so double check you’ve formatted the noted Line Items correctly.

Line Item IDs already exist in prior uploads

The Line Item ID field is intended to be unique for all of your orders across all periods. If this warning comes up, you may be unintentionally re-uploading some orders, or creating duplicate Line Item IDs.

Be very careful with this warning as proceeding will overwrite historic Line Items. In the below case, if you move ahead, the original Line Item 1234567890 will be overwritten with the new upload. If the original Line Item was for an ongoing filing period or for a different upload in the current filing period, you will overwrite and delete the old data.

Line Item IDs duplicated in current upload

Our uploader has identified that you have the same Line Item ID twice in the uploaded file. These values are intended to be unique among all entries and we will only keep one. Double check that you have not duplicated any data!

Line Items with negative sales and $0 taxes

If you collected taxes for these sales, please update your total_taxes data and re-upload it. If no tax is required for these sales, update Taxable to FALSE.

Negative sales taxes

We include a summary of all your negative values to ensure you’re intentionally allocating refunds correctly. If you are uploading refunds, make sure this summary is aligned with your expectations.

Zip Codes Updated

Many zip codes in the Northeast US have leading zeros. Many data formatting programs, including Excel, will often remove leading zeros from numbers. To help make sure your data is accurate and counteract this change, Numeral will automatically correct zip codes that have shortened values. We also confirm that these zips are in the correct state. If you see this warning, double check that the Line Item IDs accurately correspond with the updated zip codes.

Possible multiple Line Item IDs

We raise this warning when we see a comma or other column delimiter in **the Line Item Id field. It can indicate that multiple IDs have been accidentally put into the same row. Double check that the IDs listed are aligned with the ones you intended to upload.

Possible multiple Order IDs

We raise this warning when we see a comma or other column delimiter in **the Order Id field. It can indicate that multiple orders have been accidentally put into the same row. We return the Line Item ID of the row in question, so double check that entry in your data to make sure the correct order is associated with it.

Common Error Messages

Below are error messages and instructions on how to resolve them -

Please use a valid date/time format

Make sure you are uploading a valid date/time format. Make sure the year value includes four digits. Some common accepted formats include: MM/DD/YYYY (example: 01/25/2025)

YYYY/MM/DD (example: 2024/07/30*)*

YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS (example: 2024-07-30 08:30:59*)*

Line Item ID is required

Ensure that all entries in your upload have a unique Line Item ID.

Order ID is required

Ensure that all entries in your upload have an Order ID. We use this to keep track of your total order count for nexus studies.

Sales amount must be provided

Make sure none of the values in the Sales column are blank. Sometimes an export will have blank rows. $0 is ok to include as a value (use 0.00, not $0.00).

Tax amount must be provided

Make sure none of the values in the Total_Taxes column are blank. Sometimes an export will have blank rows. $0 is ok to include as a value (use 0.00, not $0.00).

Taxable status (true/false) must be specified

Make sure you include a choice of TRUE or FALSE in the taxable column. These values must be uppercase. For example,true, True, and tRuE will not be accepted.

Shipping state/province is required

Ensure you have included a state or province code. We require these to allocate sales correctly for filings and nexus studies.

Please provide a valid state/province code

We expect a standard 2-character state code. For example, ensure that you are uploading CA and not California in the shipping_address_province column

Shipping ZIP/postal code is required

Ensure you have included a ZIP or postal code. We require these to allocate sales correctly for filings and nexus studies.

ZIP/postal code format is invalid

Ensure that your ZIP code is either a standard 5 digit postal code or a ZIP plus 4 in the format of XXXXX-XXXX - the dash is required.

Transaction date must be provided

Ensure that you have a value in the TRANSACTION_DATE_TIME column.

Transaction date is too recent for the current filing period

You should only upload sales for months that have completely passed. For example, if you are uploading in early March, you should only upload through the last day of February. Any orders in March will be uploaded in the middle of an ongoing filing period.

Please provide a valid country code in the shipping address

We expect a 2-character country code in the shipping address, such as US, not United States or USA

Please enter a valid number

Please ensure your numbers are formatted correctly. All of the below are valid:

10.50, $10.50, 10, $10, 0, $0, $0.00, 0.00, 0.53

These are invalid:

100.4, 0.124, .53

Please use ‘TRUE’ or ‘FALSE’ for boolean fields

Ensure that values in True/False fields like Taxable are formatted correctly. They must be in all uppercase.

Accepted values:

TRUE, FALSE

Rejected values:

True, true, trUE, Yes, Y

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