Zone Alias

Menu > Tax Data > Zones > Alias

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.)

The Zone Alias page lists many common aliases, provided by ONESOURCE Tax Research, which you can use in your environment. If you are a Custom Data Provider, you can also use this page to set up any alternate names required by your ERP system but not provided as part of Determination Tax Data.

Before working with this page the first time, please review Zone Alias Mapping, which contains information about the zone matching process.

Click a link to go to a procedure. Use the table below to enter data in required and optional fields:

View zone aliases

  1. Select the parent zone of the desired zone alias from the Zones Search page.
  2. Click the Alias tab. The zone aliases for child zones of the selected zone are displayed as shown here:

  1. If you prefer to display aliases defined by parent zones, click Show Parent Aliases. An example is shown here:

Throughout Determination, custom aliases are indicated with blue, underlined, italic text.

Keep these rules in mind when you add a zone alias:

  • You cannot add aliases with the EU zone selected. Select either World to add a Country-level alias, or a lower-level zone such as a Country to add all other alias types.
  • The text entered in the Alias and Value fields is case-insensitive. The resulting Zone Name match is converted to upper case.
  • You cannot enter a two-digit, three-digit, or ISO code that is included as Determination System-Level Data as an alias; these values cannot be aliased. See Zone Alias Mapping for more information about matching.

Add a zone alias

  1. Select the parent zone of the desired zone alias from the Zones Search page.
  2. Click the Alias tab.
  3. Select Add from the Actions menu.
  4. Select the desired level (Level Applied) for the alias. This will always be a lower level than the currently-selected zone.
  5. Enter the Alias text.
  6. Enter the Value for the alias text. This must match a valid Determination zone name, or the alias will fail.
  7. Indicate whether or not the alias Type is a Full Match, a Prefix, or a Suffix. See the field reference table for details.
  8. Click Submit to save your changes.

Modify a zone alias

  1. Select the parent zone of the desired zone alias from the Zones Search page.
  2. Click the Alias tab.
  3. Search for the desired alias.
  4. Modify alias details.
  5. Click Submit to save your changes.

Delete a zone alias

  1. Select the parent zone of the desired zone alias from the Zones Search page.
  2. Click the Alias tab.
  3. Search for and select the desired alias.
  4. Select Delete from the Actions menu.
  5. Click OK to confirm the deletion.

Export a custom zone alias

You can export the selected custom zone alias or a custom zone alias and its siblings.

  1. Search for and select the desired zone alias. Only custom zone aliases can be exported.
  2. Select Properties from the Actions menu.
  3. Click one of the following:
    • This Zone Alias to export only the selected zone alias.
    • This Zone Alias and All Siblings to export the selected zone alias and all other zone aliases parented by the selected zone and owned by this company or its custom data provider.
  4. Click Save.
  5. Browse to or enter a filename to save to and click Save.

Once you save the file, you can re-import it. See the Importing Data page.

Zone Alias Field Reference

Field

Req?

Description

Show Parent Aliases

N/A

If checked, aliases of parent zones of the selected zone are also displayed. However, parent aliases cannot be modified or deleted.

To perform actions on parent aliases, select the parent zone on the Search Zones page, then come back to the Aliases page and make your changes.

Zone Name

N/A

This field only appears if the Show Parent Aliases checkbox is checked; it indicates the owning zone of the various aliases displayed.

Level Applied

Y

The level of the alias being configured, which is always a child of the selected zone. Valid values are:

  • For United States Tax Data, County and City zones.

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

    Aliases cannot be set when EU is the selected Zone. Select the World zone (for Country-level aliases) or a lower-level zone on the Zones Search page, then return to this page to add your aliases.

Alias

Y

The alias text, following these guidelines:

  • Alias matching is case-insensitive.
  • Aliases must consist of at least two characters. If aliasing a prefix or suffix such as the N in N ORLEANS, you must add an underscore character to indicate the space (N_). In this case, the alias would be from N_ to NEW_; both the alias and the value need to include the trailing space.
  • Leading and trailing spaces are always truncated from aliases; always use the underscore character as shown above if leading or trailing space is desired.
  • Spaces within strings (such as the full alias N ORLEANS to the value NEW ORLEANS) are permitted. You can also enter this alias as N_ORLEANS for consistency.

Country, state, and provinces can be aliased to full names only, not to other codes. You cannot enter a valid two-digit, three-digit, or ISO code as an alias.

Value

Y

The value of the alias; the resulting name once the alias is applied must be a valid zone name or the alias will fail.

This field is case-insensitive.

If an underscore is included in an Alias, in most cases it will also need to be in the Value field. For example, if you are matching the prefix alias SO to SOUTH, include the underscore on both (SO_ and SOUTH_). In this case, SO BOSTON would be transformed to SOUTH BOSTON.

The exception to this rule is when you want a prefix to be concatenated to the alias string. For example, if you had an Alias of FT_ to the Value of FORT, FT DEFIANCE would be transformed to FORTDEFIANCE.

Type

Y

One of the following:

  • Full Match: The entire string is evaluated. Example: N ORLEANS to NEW ORLEANS. Default setting.
  • Prefix: The first part of a string is evaluated. For example, FT to FORT in the zone FORT WORTH.
  • Suffix: The last part of a string is evaluated. For example, ISLE to ISLAND in the zone PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND.