ADP SmartCompliance is a tax and regulatory compliance platform for midsize or larger companies using an ERP or non-ADP platform for HR and HRMS services.
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Avalara
Score 8.8 out of 10
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Avalara AvaTax connects to the software that businesses already have and delivers sales tax decisions based on precise geo-location in more than 12,000 taxing jurisdictions in the U.S.
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Pricing
ADP SmartCompliance
Avalara
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
ADP SmartCompliance
Avalara
Free Trial
No
No
Free/Freemium Version
No
No
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
Yes
Yes
Entry-level Setup Fee
Required
Optional
Additional Details
Pricing varies based upon modules deployed and features enabled.
If you are not a tax client, I am not sure this would be the appropriate solution for you. If you didn't utilize their credit services I could also see that this product might not be the best for you. If you utilize their tax filing then this is a great way to see it all, or if you operate in multiple jurisdictions.
I find Avalara to work very well if you are using a software system that is integrated with Avalara, and it is set up to calculate the tax and file the returns. It is very streamlined and efficient. It doesn't work as well if the tax is calculated elsewhere and you have Avalara filing your returns; the options for getting the tax info into Avalara are very limited.
Unemployment Tax Notices - It's easy to upload the notices in ADP SmartComplianceand ADP investigate the issues and responds to agencies. Rarely do they have me reach out directly. They make notes in ADP SmartCompliance to keep us updated too.
New Garnishment Processing - You can bulk upload garnishments received into ADP SmartCompliance which makes it more efficient for setup and responses.
Payment Solutions - Whenever we receive a call from an employee that they lost their check or that it was sent to the wrong account, ADP SmartCompliance makes it easy to stop the payments.
Notices for the customer to contact the tax agency. It would be beneficial before that is being asked of the client for ADP to provide some context what steps they have already taken proactively to try to resolve. Seems like a lot gets put on the paying customer instead of ADP trying to resolve on the customer's behalf.
Help articles could be more user-friendly.
Compliance for state specific laws and regulations could be better communicated. Such as new OT, FMLA, Required Taxes by state.
Avalara needs to be able to provide tax and legal advice, so we don't have to go to an outside source.
Some states we file in have more than just sales tax on the return. For example, Washington has B&O tax, tire tax, sales and use tax. It would help a lot if Avalara could report all of these taxes, so we don't have to file manually.
ADP displays value continuously by automating compliance processes, reducing risk, and saving time. It ensures that tax filings are accurate, efficient notice management, and seamless integration with payroll systems, which minimizes penalties and manual work. The platforms reliability and strong support make it essential for maintaining compliance within our company and department
Avalara is the best sales tax compliance product on the market. Avalara allows us to accurately comply with our sales and use tax obligations in an accurate and timely manner for a reasonable cost. Avatax is a versatile and helpful product. We also are looking forward to implementing the cross-border product.
For the most part, one can get in and learn how to navigate the system by just clicking on one of the suject areas. If you have a good clientrepresentative, they will inform you of new features/functionality and give you a quick demo. This is helpful for one to go back in and navigate to learn how it works and usefulness.
The overall usability has been good, but we just have some problems/issues with the integration, especially with NetSuite. I believe that this should be a simple fix but having difficulty with getting our problems/issues addressed. I do like the Avalara homepage and it being easy to navigate to different pages when needed.
Availability is good, with only one or two instances of not being able to access the system at all which were quickly fixed. Some features do not work correctly from time to time, such as the "Help" function or the "Sync" function.
If ADP is having issues, they communicate the problem within the solution once you log in. They also communicate that the issue will be fixed promptly. Reports run efficiently and in a reasonable amount of time. Also, the reports allow for various reporting types to be produced like a PDF or a Microsoft Excel file.
We do have trouble tying Avalara's reporting back to our POS, but we just got a new POS system and there are bugs we are still trying to work out within the POS system. I do not believe this is an Avalara issue
As mentioned in the last comment, everyone and everything has been great. However sometimes you get one person that I feel can bring a score down and the current dedicated tax representative I have I do not feel is very supportive.
It does not [matter] how much you pay in support packages for Avalara, [from my experience] you will never receive timely response times. Additionally, [it seems to me] their support techs are not experienced and/or do not understand the nature of your issues. I have resolved the majority of my issues before the support team is able to.
Exceptional Training Services Received during and after our Build . The teams of ADP Professionals assisted on a daily basis with tight deadlines and testing, each day , each Qtr. and annual processes including setting up local and State agencies for the 50 State we are reporting since our Workday go live 4/1/23. The process was seamless.
Online training give us more flexible on timing. We always have a pack schedule and not able to attend training in person. Online training with recording is a good source for us especially we can review it again and again. The down side is we are unable ask question in person
The documentation online we informative and helpful. The videos from the Avalara institute and the help tab if we have any questions and the search too were helpful. We like the ease of using the click here for more information tool about nexus and the information for the ECM Pro training were helpful. Whenever we have a question we normally get an email along with the tool as to where to find our answer. We also like that it shows information about nexus status of the states we maybe approaching and we can look more into it.
I wasn't too hands on with integration portion of this product so I can't completely give an honest answer to that. I have been told that the training improves alot for each individual as they go through the process and it improves success. These individuals are able to do alot more than me in regards to implementation.
The rating of a 6 was not because I was displeased with Avalara's service or implementation team. The implementation process and implementation team were great. The issue I had with implementation was finding the time of an implementation specialist to devote to our account. With the fast growth of Avalara, my specialist always felt rushed which made me feel I did not get adequate time or support.
We reviewed MasterTax and Ceridian before selecting ADP's Employment Tax four years ago. ADP SmartCompliance was selected because it was thought that this solution would save us time and resources. We have since revisited MasterTax and have looked at Asure as well. These companies offer more control and require more manual intervention before returns are filed and payments made as a tradeoff.
When I started with the company, they were using a version of CCH. This was my first experience with that program and I found it very cumbersome. It was unable to calculate multiple tax rates (this may have changed in the last 10 years) and while it filled out some of the tax returns for us, we still had to manipulate many and file them ourselves. Now we just verify that what we show in our system matches Avalara and hit approve and we are done for another month.
ADP has the ability to scale across departments. This was found to be true when we rolled out the wage payment solution. ADP users are able to view their pay stubs on their phones and/or computers. This wage payment portal offers W2 storage and paystub storage for access at any time by an employee.
