Zones

Determination segments the world into geographical areas called zones. This segmentation enables you to associate particular tax authorities, and therefore rules and rates, with transactions that take place in those zones.

• The top-level zone is the World.
• Second-level zones include countries and trade groups such as the European Union.

• The hierarchy can continue downwards into countries, provinces, states, counties, cities, districts, Postal Codes, and finally, to Geocodes––the lowest level zone.

  For a complete list of XML elements associated with each level, see Address Level Input XML Elements.

Each zone can be associated with one or more authorities. You can also specify the order in which each authority is applied.

Matching Addresses to Zones

Determination attempts to match zones to the address data provided in the input XML:

• If a single zone matches the submitted data, that zone is applied.
• If multiple zones match the submitted data and a default zone can be applied, a Partial Zone Tree Match message is returned and the calculation continues.
• If multiple zones match the submitted data and no default can be applied, a Multiple Zone Tree Match severe error is returned and the calculation terminates.
• If not enough data is supplied in the address to match any zone, a severe error is returned and the calculation terminates.

Configuring Zone Lookup Behavior

The following Configuration parameters are available to enable fine-tuning of zone lookups:

Parameter	Default Setting	Description
AV_INTL_TAXPROVIDER	INTL Tax Data	Sets Determination company used to look up zones when using the Address Validation servlet to look up non-US addresses. Can be any company set up in Determination. If this parameter is not configured, lookup uses INTL Tax Data.
AV_PARTIAL_MATCH_STATES	Null (Off)	US Armed Forces addresses include "state" codes such as AE, AP, and AA. If this parameter is set, submitting an address containing these codes can result in a successful zone tree match. Set to Code1,Code2,CodeN to enable validation for those "states". For example, set to AA,AE,AP. The default is null (off).
AV_PLUS_FOUR_ALTERNATES_ENABLED	Null (Off)	Specifies if the alternate +4 ZIP codes should be included in the return results when no +4 is supplied with a US address, or the supplied +4 is not found. Set to Y to enable the return of alternate +4s. The default does not return alternate +4s.
AV_US_TAXPROVIDER	US Tax Data	Sets Determination company used to look up zones when using Address Validation to look up US addresses. This parameter can be any company set up in Determination. If this parameter is not configured, lookup is performed using US tax data.

If an international address includes a <STATE> which either maps to a US address or is invalid for that country, the transaction will fail unless you downgrade the severity of the INVALID STATE message from Severe to Warning or Informational.

Zones Tasks

You can perform the following tasks related to zones:

• View zones on the Zones Search page.
• View zone details on the Zones Edit page.
• View which authorities are attached to the selected zone, and attach or detach authorities to that zone, on the Zones Authorities page.
• View Determination-provided zone aliases, and add custom zone aliases, on the Zones Alias page.
• Modify system-wide configuration parameters related to zones on the Configuration page.