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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BlackLine
Score 8.9 out of 10
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BlackLine's cloud-based financial operations management platform unifyies data and processes, automating repetitive tasks and enhancing accountability. BlackLine solutions for financial close, accounts receivable, and intercompany accounting support large enterprises and midsize companies.
Avalara provides deeper insights into tax nexus status than Shopify does. Shopify also does not have tax filing options, just tax calculations. We did not try any other platforms aside from Shopify's native tax program and Avalara's Avatax.
We looked at using Shopify's native tax platform but they do not handle SST state tax filings nor state returns that have sales tax prepayments. Those are 2 big necessities for us so while the Shopify platform is more cost effective, SST filings and prepayments are musts for us.
We didn't do enough research at the time and should have picked anything else. Kintsugi, Anrok or Numeral would be a much better choice. I feel your best option is to not include Avalara in your sales tax evaluations
Avalara mails out the forms to the vendor and Government for you. All you have to do is supply the information for each vendor. Let you know when it is being sent out, if the emails were good and if the recipients downloaded the document. They will resend if necessary.
Avalara is much more user friendly and1099 online is harder to navigate. It is about the same cost to file but it is harder to find what you are looking for. I used it beucase I was able to make certain corrections.
Much easier to use and understand. Easier to upload information from our system to Track 1099. Did not give you the option to email 1099's to your payees. When they found something wrong the system would reject and not create a 1099 for that payee.
Avalara is designed for businesses and tax professionals by making the workflow more simplified. Manual entry is reduced and the process is more steamlined reducing errors and stress. The platform is clear, focused and uncomplicated. These attributes is why I have chosen …
I found Avalara to be much more accurate, and cost effective compared to Sovos. With Sovos, I ran into serious issues with the data transfer, causing the data to be corrupted or incorrect. Since the timeline for sending out 1099s is extremely narrow, this creates a real …
BlackLine has a stronger foundation in terms of functionality. However Floqast and Highradius have a much better User Interface and integration with MS Teams.
as we are still relatively new to BlackLine we are still in process of getting things set up and settled within the team. it does seem more user friendly.
I haven't had an opportunity yet to explore any other wonderful products offered by BlackLine yet, honestly it was the first time in the Vantage event when we found out that BlackLine offers so much more than just reconciliations, it was an eye opener and knowing that there …
BlackLine is easier and cleaner in the sense of being on a platform that standardizes your system. Floqast just comes in and adds a tag to your already existing daily files and processes, which makes it just a bandaid to a larger more underlying problem. BlackLine for our use, …
Frontier is the product that we had before going to BlackLine. There are some parts of BlackLine that don't stack up well but overall BlackLine is slowing becoming the product of the future now that is is address some of the issues that have been a problem us - again have a …
BlackLine's functionality is richer and broader. However, it is not as user-friendly as FloQast. I wish BlackLine would take on re-platforming the User Interface and Experience as a major initiative. This will enable BlackLine to explore new market segments such has High Tech …
In my opinion, the worst customer service and fraudulent withdrawal from our bank account. We've used Avalara for 3 years. When our renewal came up, we were considering other options. They sent an email stating we had to request a new contract, I sent the request and followed up. There was no response from Avalara so our contract price was unknown. I waited to hear from them and ended up canceling within their window, via the appropriate channels. I followed up multiple times, requesting cancellation confirmation and removal of our bank info (you can't self serve, although you can self serve add it). In my experience, they ignored me for 2 months until I posted publicly about their poor service. I changed our login information and migrated to another platform. In my experience, they withdrew funds from our bank account, the new provider said our taxes weren't paid and the funds are nowhere to be found. Avalara should have never withdrew the funds or billed me after I canceled. Beware of this company, in my opinion, they are non-responsive and unpleasant to deal with.
BlackLine is well-suited for us when it comes to the bank reconciliations, as our systems feed right into BlackLine, and the various match sets reconcile the data effortlessly. BlackLine would work to its fullest extent if all departments utilized it, so you can take advantage of all the various products that are available.
If a list of tax-exempt codes is available, I have not found it and the help desk has not shared it. That code is necessary for Avalara and the online shopping cart to communicate that a customer is tax-exempt.
When I first started using Avalara I could upload documents. Now I need a higher subscription level (as in, pay more money) to do the exact same task I was already doing for years.
The one or two issues that I had that were not resolved right away were never really resolved. Luckily, we were able to eventually figure it out, but there were one or two cases (out of many, so still a low number) that were closed without a resolution.
The Reporting Module does not provide any FRA reports. Variance reporting is Limited.
FRA, To trace from GL balances imported to the Variance module can be difficult, as you need to map the GL balances to the level in the Var Module. This is a manual offline process. Would be good to have reporting that provides the link.
Matching Module - Intransit, when scheduling, you cannot pull all the unmatched transactions; only the current period.
Match Sets: if you have a chance to a live match set (e.g., filter at DS), you can't update the Match Set; you have to rebuild. It would be good to be able to amend and not rebuild.
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.
Because this is a great tool with many possibilities and cool perks. Plus, as an admin - because I am both user and admin - I can say that this is easy to handle, you don't even have to be able to write a single piece of code to do so
I only say this because we had no real training on the system at all. We requested it multiple times, and no one could give us that. We had to figure a lot out for ourselves, got a rep change and finally got someone to help us navigate a bit better. Please make sure any onboarding clients get proper training and resources before going live.
There are some processes that we currently use that cannot be done in BlackLine. Our users don't want to change their processes or learn new processes even though it would make their jobs easier. We have very few users who have adopted BlackLine fully, and management has not made it a requirement to use the application.
We never experienced an outage with BlackLine. The only time the system was unavailable was during planned outages for updates and upgrades usually Friday evening after 6pm pst until Saturday morning at 6am pst.
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
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.
In my experience, the support team is beyond exceptional. They are incredibly knowledgeable and dedicated to the customer. You can expect prompt, professional and succinct responses. I have been working with the support team for BlackLine for more than ten years where I have been a customer four times. If anyone does Support right, it is definitely BlackLine. Not only can you trust your financials, but you can trust the team to support you through all your objectives!
Trainings are available for all topics on the BlackLine U portal. These were incredibly helpful when first starting with BlackLine to get the hang of it. Trainings are useful for any module. I have personally used this to teach myself how to use the tasks and variance modules, which are now fully utilized by my organization. The support team is also very helpful in training our team on anything additional we have needed.
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.
You will have to meet up with your final users, approver, internal auditor and accounting policy holder. Everyone has to agree. When you have a well written process, workflow, policy, approval requirement, and control, your implementation process will be much easier
TaxJar is integrated with Kaseya autotask, and this integration is very inefficient and was not easy to set up. Neither TaxJar nor Kaseya support was helpful at all, "rude" is the only word to describe that, whereas Avalara has always tried to be helpful and has been very friendly to work with. TaxJar has no similar capability to retain their tax-calculated transactions and file the returns; TaxJar would calculate the taxes in Kaseya autotask and you would still have to manually import the data into TaxJar if you wanted to subscribe and have them file your returns. Needless to say that was a non-starter.
BlackLine is easier and cleaner in the sense of being on a platform that standardizes your system. FloQast just comes in and adds a tag to your already existing daily files and processes, which makes it just a bandaid to a larger more underlying problem. BlackLine for our use, is much better and cost wise was very similar.
After implementing BlackLine our company acquired another large company with multiple operations. We were able to use the COVID shutdown to bring them on board with BlackLine with little effort in the setup and training of the users.
Ability to centralize certain functions across the team into one role, as opposed to having multiple team members perform the same function for their entities.
While not a negative impact, it's important to note that getting the best use of BlackLine is a time commitment. The time, resources, and energy you put into it will determine how successful you are at utilizing BlackLine to transform how your team gets the job done. This optimization journey is a continuous evolution and will not be an overnight transformation.
