If you run a camp that charges sales tax (such as HST) on family charges, Campminder calculates that tax for you, automatically and after discounts are applied, so families are never taxed on a pre-discount amount.
Note: This article assumes you're already comfortable creating line items in Financial Admin.
In this article:
Set up a Sales Tax line item at the family level
Configure Effect On so tax calculates against the correct amount
Understand how tax entries behave on the ledger and in reporting
Financial Admin: Line Items
Navigate to Financial Admin > Line Items and click Define New.
Change Apply To from Person to Family.
📋 Note: Sales Tax only appears as a line item type option once Apply To is set to Family. A tax line item can never be applied at the person level.
💡 Tip: Not seeing Sales Tax as an option? This service may need to be enabled on your account first. Sales Tax is designed for Canadian camps.
Select Sales Tax as the line item type.
Enter your tax rate as a percentage.
Under Effect On, select the financial categories this tax applies to.
📋 Note: Effect On controls what actually gets taxed. If tuition is already tax-inclusive, or if only certain fees should be taxed, choose your categories carefully rather than selecting everything.
📋 Note: Include discounts in Effect On. Discounts themselves aren't taxed, but including them tells Campminder to calculate tax on the discounted amount — the correct taxable base — instead of the full price.
Save the line item.
🎯 Try it now: Go to Financial Admin > Line Items, define a Sales Tax line item at the Family level, and set Effect On to include both your taxable charges and your discounts. Come back when you've done it.
How Tax Behaves on the Ledger
Once active, a Sales Tax line item is always a family-level debit, and it recalculates automatically every time the ledger updates. Each tax entry stays tied to the specific charges and discounts it was calculated from, so Transaction and Journal Entry reports stay accurate.
A few behaviors are worth knowing:
Payments don't change tax. Whether a family has paid in full or hasn't paid at all, tax is calculated from charges and discounts only — never from payment activity.
A reversal-and-new-entry pair on the ledger isn't double taxation. Like other percentage-based line items (discounts included), tax recalculates in pieces as the ledger changes. If a family pays in full upfront, the first entry stands. Otherwise, you may see an entry reversed and a new one added lower on the ledger as the balance shifts. The math is always correct — Financial Admin will show you the full calculation if you need to trace it.
A reversed tax entry comes back. Tax is auto-added like other seasonally active line items, and there's no setting to prevent it from reapplying after a reversal. If your camp is charging tax, it isn't intended to be waived for an individual family.
Tips & Examples
💡 Tip: If Due Now looks like it's missing tax, check whether Pay In Full is selected. Due Now reflects the full ledger total, not just what the calculator considers due right now, so tax may not show until Pay In Full is applied.
💡 Tip: You can configure more than one Sales Tax line item if your camp genuinely needs different rates for different situations. Keep each one's Effect On categories distinct so the same charge isn't taxed twice.
🏕️ Camps in Action
One Ontario camp charges standard HST to most families, but Indigenous families are taxed at a reduced rate under provincial rules — 5% instead of 13%.
Since Campminder calculates tax based on Effect On categories rather than household details like status or address, the camp set up a second Sales Tax line item at the lower rate and applies it manually for the families it affects, reversing the standard-rate entry each time a charge is added. It's a manual step, but it's a light one.
Before you move on, check yourself:
Can you explain why a Sales Tax line item has to be set to Family, not Person?
Do you know why Effect On needs to include discounts, even though discounts themselves aren't taxed?
Can you explain why a reversed tax entry reappears on the ledger instead of staying removed?
Ready for the next step?
Financial Admin: Create and Configure Line Items — the foundational setup this article builds on
Financial Reporting: Transaction and Journal Entry Reports — see how tax apportionment shows up in reporting