Zone Alias Mapping

The zone names provided by Determination may not always match the names used by your ERP system. For example:

• You may use non-English spellings (Roma, Deutschland, etc.)
• You may use common abbreviations (Ft Worth, N Orleans, etc.)
• You may use alternate names (Prince Edward Isle, PEI, etc.)

Matching a Zone Alias

When Determination encounters a zone name it does not recognize, it attempts to find an alias match following these rules:

• The lowest level zone in the zone tree is checked first for aliases; then the tree is traversed up to the top level (World).
• Within each level, custom aliases are tested first, then tax data provider aliases. For example, if a US City zone is not recognized, the system checks for City alias records in this order:
  • Custom at the County level
  • Tax Data Provider at the County level
  • Custom at the Country level
  • Tax Data Provider at the Country level
  • Custom at the World level
  • Tax Data Provider at the World level

• Valid levels for which aliases can be set are:

  • For United States Tax Data, County and City zones.
  • For International Tax Data, Country, State, Province, County, and City zones.

  Country, State, and Province codes (two-character, three-character, and ISO codes) in Determination system-level data cannot be used in aliases.

  For example, you cannot alias AL to Alaska, because AL is the valid two-character code for Alabama. However, you can alias other two-character or three-character codes, such as ZZ, or ZZZ, to valid zone names.

  If you want to use codes such as these, you must first lower the severity of one or more of the INVALID_COUNTRY and INVALID_STATE application messages from Severe to Warning. INVALID_PROVINCE is already set at that level.

• The first matching alias text is tested to see if a valid zone name can be generated.
  • Matches are case-insensitive.
  • Full Match aliases are tested first, then prefix matches, then suffix matches.
  • Within the prefix and suffix types, aliases are tested from longest to shortest. For example, NORTH_ is tested before NOR_, which is tested before NO_, which is tested before N_.
  • If the alias results in a single valid zone name, the zone name is applied and an informational message (ZONE_ALIAS_APPLIED) is returned with the transaction.
  • If the alias results in a non-valid zone name or multiple matches outside the US, additional matches are tested in the order shown above.
  • If the alias results in a partial zone tree match but improves the zone accuracy of the transaction, the match is applied. For example, if transaction data results in a partial match at the Country level, but an alias results in a partial match at the Province level, the alias is applied.
  • If no valid zone names can be created, a partial zone tree or no zone tree message is raised, depending on other transaction values.

• If a US alias results in multiple matches at the City level, the (default) zone for that City is applied. This scenario is encountered when a city spans multiple counties.

  So that Determination can recognize multiple zone aliases in an address, make sure aliases are attached to the same parent .

  For example, if you have an alias for province and another for city, Determination recognizes both only if they are attached to the country.

  However, if you do not attach them to the same parent level, Determination searches down the zone tree and finds only the first alias, which leads to a partial zone tree match.

Zone Alias Matches

If you are using zone aliases and submit a +4 zip code in address data, but no matching zip code is in the Determination tax data, Determination returns the city zone that is marked as default in the tax data.