The California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) is a state statute intended to enhance privacy rights and consumer protection for residents of California. Based on this legislation, WineDirect has removed date of birth (DOB) and some Billing Address information from Packing Slip PDFs globally to ensure compliance and consumer privacy.
This update means removing DOB from Packing Slips PDF printouts. In addition, all Purchaser Billing Address information - except for the City and State/Province, which is required by regulators to determine the purchaser's origin, has been removed.
Below is an example of the updated Packing Slip PDFs will display Billing Address going forward:
No action is needed from you, we have already made this change in the backend on your behalf to ensure you continue to protect your consumer's privacy. Thank you for your understanding as we move quickly to uphold compliance.
If your winery is within the Temecula Valley Wine & Agricultural Heritage District (TVWAHD), you may have heard that on April 1, 2021 a hybrid tax was implemented for all wineries in the region. This five year term stipulates that 1% of all gross sales be funnelled into advertising for the valley.
The good news is that lead trainer, Ben Kraemer, has created a video detailing everything you need to know about the change and your WineDirect setup. Watch the video below:
If you intend to pass this assessment on to your customers, you should retroactively collect it starting April 1, 2021. The amount of assessment, if passed on to each customer, shall be disclosed in advance and be separately stated from the amount charged and any other applicable taxes, and each customer shall receive a receipt for payment from the business. Please identify this assessment as the “TVWAHD Assmt” in a separate line item on the customer’s receipt. In order to disclose the fee in advance, a simple note of “All sales are subject to a 1% Temecula Valley Wine & Agricultural Heritage District fee” should either be printed on tasting menus and/or restaurant menus or on a sign at the register.
Additionally, it must be disclosed in any special events and wedding estimates and contracts. Please note that if a customer refuses to pay the assessment, your business is still liable for paying it.
We've also created some FAQs to help your migrate through this change:
1) What should we call the assessment on the sales receipt?
Per the District’s Management Plan, the assessment will be called “TVWAHD Assmt.”
2) The 1% assessment is charged on gross sales revenue. What does that include?
All direct to consumer sales of for wine, wine club shipments (whether shipped or picked up), ticket sales, tasting fees, tours and private and public special events, merchandise, prepared foods for on-premise or off-premise consumption (whether sold in a tasting room or a stand-alone restaurant on-premise), orders placed via telemarketing, telephone, online, email, whether carried out at the time of purchase, shipped or picked up at a later date (pre-sales). Gross sales revenue shall not include any federal, state or local taxes collected, including but not limited to sales and use taxes.
3) Does the assessment apply to any non-taxable items? (e.g. Shipping, Gratuity, Non-taxable pre-packaged food, etc.?)
No, it only applies to items that you would charge California sales tax on.
4) Would refunded transactions refund the assessment fee previously collected on the order?
Yes, just as you would refund sales tax, you would also refund any assessment collected.
5) Are fees collected for wholesale transactions?
No, there are no assessments collected on wholesale transactions.
6) Our tasting fee includes sales tax and we “back out” the sales tax when it comes time to pay the state. Can we include the assessment in the tasting fee as well and use the same procedure?
Yes, you can, however, it is highly recommended that you line item both the sales tax and the assessment separately, as it will make your accounting much easier and will lessen questions from customers if they see other wineries charging both the tax and assessment and you’re not. In doing a bit of research, many of the wineries in the area do charge sales tax on their tastings as a separate line item.
We are deactivating the beta feature 'Auto Digital Receipts', also known as 'Customer Capture'. This was rolled out to in beta to a few tasting rooms as a way to streamline the digital receipt process during a Point of Sale transaction.
While this was a successful trial of the concept, due to a low rate of matches found in our system our product team will discontinue it at this time and will be further assessing where to take this feature in the future to provide maximum benefit to you.
We will deactivate this feature on your Point of Sale on Thursday April 8th.
No action is required, and you may notice you will no longer have Guest Customers automatically presented with matches based on prior credit card scan in the WineDirect system. You and your staff can continue asking fist-time customers to either provide their email or enter it into the system on their behalf to send digital receipts.
If you use Product Bundles, you may have noticed intermittent cases of duplicated items within a bundle. We have now implemented a fix to prevent the specific scenario of multiple presses of the ‘Save Changes’ button unintentionally creating duplicate entries when adding items to the bundle.
We appreciate your patience as we worked through this complex and intermittent issue.
After vigorous investigation and monitoring, our team has confirmed that orders upserted into the WineDirect system using a web service integration, including RMS users, are no longer missing data.
Please note that affected orders (starting March 9th) will need to be resent from the integrated application to correct for the previously missing payment and order item information.
Thank you for your patience as we worked to solve this issue with our 3rd party web services partners.
With WineDirect's brand-new search functionality, it's now easier for your customers to search and find your wine. By implementing a smart search bar within your website, consumers can quickly search your products to find their favorite wines.
Here's what one of our beta testers had to say about the new product search functionality:
"The new update for WineDirect search tools works great! The speed is what I'm most impressed by." - Mark Kubas, Ellement Wine & Spirits
We recommend working with your designer to add search to your website. Steps can be found on our Documentation site. If you have any questions, please email support@winedirect.com.
Don't have a designer? Check out our network of Certified Designers.
As ecommerce and wine clubs sales continue to be strong, we’re proud to continue to partner with you to provide the best possible experience for your consumers.
This year, we are implementing our temperature controlled shipping options earlier to ensure the best possible experience for your members. As of March 1, our temperature controlled shipping solutions are available for your use - just in time for the busy spring and summer shipping season.
Learn all about getting set up for summer shipping success in this short video with Ben Kraemer.
We hope you enjoy the step-by-step instructions and are inspired to create shipping options to continue to delight your consumers as we welcome summer.
Our partner, WineGlass Integration Technology Solutions (WGits), offer an automated solution that allows you to easily transfer transactions directly to your QuickBooks desktop application.
We recently sat down with Dan from WGits to give us an overview of the solution, including main benefits, cost, what to expect and some FAQs. Watch the video below to learn more:
Benefits of WGits for QuickBooks include:
WGits for QuickBooks offers WineDirect clients an easier way to reconcile your transactional data with your accounting needs, eliminating tedious administrative work and headaches for your team.
Eligibility Requirements:
> To learn more about WGits for QuickBooks, please contact WGits for a demo.
As part of WineDirect's ongoing commitment to security management, we are increasing online security in order to improve reliability as you manage your clubs, inventory, and winery website. As of March 22, 2021 we are recommending you to update your browser to the latest version to ensure your WineDirect login experience remains seamless.
If any computers or devices at your winery use another browser, it is key that you move to one of our supported browsers before March 22nd, 2021 to ensure your login experience remains seamless. If you’re already using Chrome, Firefox, Safari or Edge, click here to learn how to update your browser. We appreciate your help in meeting our mutual goal of top-notch security across our entire platform.
We recently implemented a fix for an intermittent issue causing some orders using Easy Ship UPS setup to remain with a "Pending Carrier Pickup" shipping status, resulting in the “Order Has Shipped” tracking notification email failing to trigger.
We apologize for any confusion and inconvenience caused to wine club members and customers who received this delayed and in some cases duplicate notification. We are continuing to monitor while implementing additional performance improvements with UPS.