How it works
One shipment, all the way through the gauntlet.
Every order Pinrate sees walks the same path. Here's a single California shipment, from the moment it's placed to the cited receipt it leaves behind.
1An order lands
A bottle is sold to a customer in California. The order — buyer address, products, quantities — arrives at Pinrate the moment it's placed, by API call or platform webhook. Nothing is decided yet.
2Leg one — license
Pinrate asks the first question: may this winery ship here, and is the fulfilling party licensed to do it? It reads the licenses on file and the basis for this lane. If the basis is a partner's license, it confirms that license is in force.
if no license in force → DENY · the shipment never leaves
3Leg two — eligibility
Next: is the product permitted, is the address shippable, is the buyer of age and verified, and are they still inside the annual volume window? Pinrate counts what this buyer has already received this year against the cap. Four of twelve bottles used — clear, but tracked.
at 12 of 12 bottles → DENY · volume window exhausted
4Leg three — tax
The address is resolved to the rooftop, not the ZIP. State, county, and district rates are each pulled as a specific, dated version and stacked. Excise is classed by alcohol content. Every rate that touches the math is pinned to the version that was authoritative on the order date.
if rooftop unresolvable → CONDITIONAL · says exactly what's missing
5The receipt
Pinrate writes the verdict and the worked tax to an append-only ledger — line by line, down to line 18. The answer isn't a green checkmark; it's a return you could file.
REPRESENTATIVE · ACROSS THE 2025 REPLAY, 44 OF 45 LINES TIE TO THE DOLLAR · LINE 18 = $0
6Two years later, the state asks
A notice arrives questioning the tax on this shipment. You replay the decision id. The same verdict comes back, citing the same pinned versions that decided it the first time — the schedule, the publication, the district. The answer isn’t “trust us.” It’s the citation.