Address Region Validation

Overview

Sage Business Cloud Accounting is available for businesses operating in seven different regions. At inception, SBCA,formerly sageone, was designed as a product for the UK market only.

On the back of SBCA’s success in the UK, the product was made available for other markets. In addition to the UK, supported regions include Canada, France, Germany, Spain, the republic of Ireland and US.

To ensure taxation and legislation were handled correctly for the supported regions, SBCA became reliant on the accuracy of the information entered for the addresses of both the operating business and the contacts of the business.

The validation of address data means that for certain regions, the region attribute returned in responses for contact addresses and businesses behaves differently. The below tables outline those differences.

UK & Republic of Ireland

The region field is available in the web UI for both businesses and contacts, and can be used to further define an address by allowing free text up to 45 chars. The region is not used for tax rate validation.

Europe

The region attribute is not shown in the web UI for European contacts and businesses but does remain accessible via the API. The region is not used to validate tax rates for Europe and the field is not accessible in the web UI.

Canada

The Web UI provides a list of provinces and territories to select from. On saving the data, the two-character code for the selected province or territory is stored. The stored code is then used to validate the Provincial Sales Tax rates used when creating artefacts (invoices/credits).

When creating or updating address data for new and existing contacts via the API, the region (Canadian Province) must be set with the correct two-character code. The region must also be set for the delivery addresses of sales artefacts(invoices/credits) to enable the validation of tax rates. The provincial tax rate used in sales artefacts must be valid for the destination province of the delivery address.

Below is the response for a Customer Contact Address located in British Columbia. Note, the region is set with the two-character province code for British Columbia, “BC”.

[
    {
    "id": "0ebf9c82acb04239971e7614033fa15f",
    "displayed_as": "Main Street\nApt. 346\nVancouver, BC V5R 5H3",
    "$path": "/addresses/0ebf9c82acb04239971e7614033fa15f",
    "address_line_1": "Main Street",
    "address_line_2": "Apt. 346",
    "city": "Vancouver",
    "postal_code": "V5R 5H3",
    "country": {
        "id": "CA",
        "displayed_as": "Canada (CA)",
        "$path": "/countries/CA"
    },
    "created_at": "2021-03-03T10:35:55Z",
    "updated_at": "2021-03-03T10:35:55Z",
    "contact": {
        "id": "87ff086f926049fba9ebe6caed45473f",
        "displayed_as": "British Columbia Customer Contact (BCCustomer)",
        "$path": "/contacts/87ff086f926049fba9ebe6caed45473f"
    },
    "address_type": {
        "id": "ACCOUNTS",
        "displayed_as": "Accounts",
        "$path": "/address_types/ACCOUNTS"
    },
    "name": "Main Address",
    "region": "BC",
    "country_group": {
        "id": "CA",
        "displayed_as": "Canada",
        "$path": "/country_groups/CA"
    },
    "is_main_address": true
    }
]

US

The Web UI provides a list of US states and territories to select from. On saving the data, the two-character code for the selected state or territory is stored. The stored code is then used to validate the Sales Tax rates used when creating artefacts (invoices/credits).

When creating or updating address data for new and existing contacts via the API, the region (US state) must be set with the correct two-character code. The region must also be set for the delivery addresses of sales artefacts(invoices/credits) to enable the validation of tax rates. The sales tax rates used in sales artefacts must be valid for the destination state or region of the delivery address.

Below is the response for a Customer Contact Address located in California. Note, the region is set with the two-character state code for California, “CA”.

[
    {
    "id": "68a6f9da9fa04d4d88ea7c82eff5152f",
    "displayed_as": "28 Main Street \nBeverley Hills CA 50210\nUnited States",
    "$path": "/addresses/68a6f9da9fa04d4d88ea7c82eff5152f",
    "address_line_1": "28 Main Street ",
    "address_line_2": null,
    "city": "Beverley Hills",
    "postal_code": "50210",
    "country": {
        "id": "US",
        "displayed_as": "United States (US)",
        "$path": "/countries/US"
    }, 
    "created_at": "2021-04-27T07:58:30Z",
    "updated_at": "2021-04-27T07:58:30Z",
    "contact": { 
        "id": "1ccc250cdfad47e3a681a07f5fe26166",
        "displayed_as": "Californian Contact (CalCont)",
        "$path": "/contacts/1ccc250cdfad47e3a681a07f5fe26166"
    },
    "address_type": {
        "id": "SALES",
        "displayed_as": "Sales",
        "$path": "/address_types/SALES"
    },
    "name": "Invoice Address",
    "region": "CA",
    "country_group": {
        "id": "US",
        "displayed_as": "US",
        "$path": "/country_groups/US"
    },
    "is_main_address": true
    }
]