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.
N/A
Avalara
Score 8.0 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.
$21
per month
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
Yes
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.
There has been much end user improvement on this site over the 3 years that I have been using it. I really appreciate the focus and attention ADP has place on making this a user friendly site so that their customers can better navigate their payroll tax issues. I look forward to the additional features that will be added in another three years time. I really am able to be quite efficient within my role because of the ease of use of this site.
I feel Avalara is the best at helping with sales tax needs. I also know they are opening up more areas to help with business needs. Our only drawback is that since we are a retailer that follows a 4-4-5 monthly calendar, it isn't an option to have Avalara process and submit our taxes monthly.
Has extensive research and documentation on telecommunications industry
Research is always up to date
The ability to ask questions and get clarification on specific situations with no limit as to how you ask a question and often get the answer the same day
ADP should have their SC employees better trained to give consistent answers about how to handle certain tax issues relating to the states. I seem to get a different answer multiple times.
It's difficult to distinguish between which cases/letters goes through ADP Workforce Now Service Connect and which cases go through SmartCompliance. I have been told differently on many occasions and will find a case in both places.
While many of the agency notices of tax rate changes, etc. are a very quick process and ADP "resolves" the case, I find other notices get lost in the shuffle when it doesn't fit exactly into the rate change bucket or the past due bill that says "Just Pay It". Some letters aren't that straightforward.
I find it virtually impossible to access people when you have issues with anything
In my experience, everything runs through account managers and they are non-responsive and unavailable most of the time.
In my experience, 99% of all communication with anybody at Avalara has to be done via some ridiculous form or via email. Human contact is extremely difficult to resolve an issue that sometimes requires human to human contact.
There is no other option on the table for us at the moment to go with a different vendor. We also have had very little issues processing with ADP that would make us want to look for a new vendor.
We need their help with filing and keeping track of things. It is very likely we are in the process of renewing right now. Autumn is our case manager and she has been a great help in keeping us updated on our usage and renewal. I feel we will be using this for a very long time.
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.
Usability is simple and user-friendly. It is a very intuitive product. All their products are easy to use. It is one of the major benefits of their products. The ease and user-friendly interface of their products are a time saver in itself. Our associates are not having to retrain for common tasks to find what they need.
We have never experienced unavailability with ADP. They communicate promptly when there is a holiday or if the system is down for maintenance. The maintenance schedule is during times when it is least used
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.
Avalara is not consistent in giving us information timely. For instance, right now, we have a help desk ticket with them that's been open since October. They are still trying to figure it out and we haven't gotten any feedback on where they are at or what is going on. That seems to me a very excessive amount of time to be working on a problem. Was it forgotten? Is there something bigger going on? Do they need something from us? An update would be helpful.
Also, many times when we call with an issue or concern (wrong tax rate for instance) we generally feel like the help desk assumes it's of our doing instead of theirs and doesn't truely listen when we explain the problem because we end up repeating it over and over as well as sending examples. We expect more respect on our end.
They have annual training for Smart Compliance, which is very helpful. We learn the most up to laws for various subject matters, like garnishments, payroll law, child support, state unemployment laws by states. We also earn credit toward certifications. The training is user friendly, and highly recommended. It can be done live or listened to at your own convenience.
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.
Currently all electronic copies of our returns have to be downloaded one at a time. There should be a way to download all returns for a quarter in a zip file or single download.
The implementation team from Avalara was very knowledgable and did a good job of passing along information so that we could maintain the system and be able to make future changes ourselves. We had asked for some custom tax setup and they worked with us to get additional taxes set up that they didn't previously have. They worked with us to pull our documentation on tax rules and make sure those were included. I had hoped more scenarios would be there out of the box to cut down on the configuration time.
ADP SmartCompliance was easily integrated with WFN and all of our employee data was in one place. We saw this as an advantage instead of having to log into multiple platforms, everything was quickly accessible to respond to a VOE or claim.
We selected Avalara because our prior service did not have the range of tax codes required for our products. They had nothing related to medical devices or supplies, so we used a generic 'taxable' tax code. Customers were unhappy because some states exempted the product we sold, even if the customer was not tax-exempt. It caused many issues, including credit memos to refund sales tax charges.
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.
The customer service phone service for the ADP Wisely service is very bad. No understanding or a language barrier is a very difficult service to deal with. Also working with them to correct a situation was impossible. It is basically non existent.
