Magical Fees 4.3.0 changes how a fee gets made. Instead of a blank form, you start from a template with the statutory amount, receipt wording, and conditions already filled in, and the app takes responsibility for the setup instead of assuming it.
Fee templates
Add fee now opens a catalog of 34 ready-made fees: container deposits for seven US states, ten Canadian provinces and territories, Germany (Pfand), Ireland, Poland, and Singapore; mattress recycling for California, Oregon, and Rhode Island; California battery fees; US tariffs on imports from China, Canada, and Mexico plus Section 338 and a generic pass-through; and credit card and processing fees.
Every template is built from the program's own published rules. Preview it, then Activate fee in one click or Customize this fee to open the full editor. Deposit templates ask for the pack-size option values, product templates ask for a collection, and tariffs ask which products carry the duty, so nothing silently applies to your whole catalog. Popular fees are pinned at the top, search matches official program names, and request a template tells us what's missing.
Read How to create a fee from a template.
Setup guide and "Where it works"
If a fee's channels aren't ready (app embed off, POS tile missing, draft-order automation off), the fee is created as a Draft with a Finish your setup checklist. Each channel task opens a short how-to, deep-links to the theme editor with the app embed preselected, and checks itself off when the app detects the change.
Every fee now has a Where it works card that says, per channel, whether it works, needs setup, or has been Seen live on order #1042, with Preview buttons for the consent popup, POS, and draft orders.
The fee editor
Opening a fee shows a one-screen summary; Customize this fee expands the full form. The cards are now questions: What it charges, What it applies to, Where it applies, When it applies, How it's enforced, Where it works. The Active/Draft toggle saves immediately in all three editors. Fee images use Shopify's file picker.
Home, Fees, and the Audit Log
- Home opens with a welcome for new installs, a performance strip (active fees, orders with fees, fees collected), a fees excerpt that always surfaces anything needing attention, an Activity excerpt from the Audit Log, and a Fee display card for the theme pieces.
- Fees gains What it does and Where it works columns, a Fee ID column that opens the Audit Log filtered to that fee, min and max on percentage fees, and newest-first sorting across all three methods.
- Audit Log gains a permanent filter bar with a Fee ID filter, a Status column, and a 60+ days upgrade path. Saved views and the summary bar are retired; Export CSV stays. See How to use the Magical Fees Audit Log.
What works on your plan
A new page, reachable from Plans and from any template, shows which fee types work on Fees Starter versus Fees Plus and on your Shopify plan. Plans itself is now two tiers with a Compliance add-on checkbox.
Sales channels, Sidekick, and the rest
- Sales channels is now a ledger with an Edit button and instructions for each piece: app embed, blocks, checkout extension, POS tiles, draft orders. POS tile detection no longer reports "Not installed" for collaborator accounts; it says "Unknown" or "Not detected" and explains why.
- Sidekick recommends the jurisdiction template ("bottle deposit for Michigan" opens the Michigan template) and lands on its preview.
- The admin moved to Polaris 13, the final release of Shopify's Polaris React library.
Fixes
- Stores with more than 100 fees had newer fees missing from the Fees list.
- The Fees list showed amounts in USD on stores that use another currency.
- A Block fee set to Unlisted dropped off the list and stopped being enforced at checkout.
- On large stores, fee enforcement stopped after 250 fee rules, and collection-targeted fees missed products in more than 10 collections.
Always label deposits separately for compliance
Display bottle deposit fees as a clearly labeled, separate line item at checkout and on receipts. This meets regulatory transparency requirements, builds customer trust by showing exactly what they're paying, and makes it significantly easier to track deposits for reporting and audits. Use a clear label like "Bottle deposit" or "Container deposit (CRV)" so customers immediately understand the charge.