TrustRadius: an HG Insights company

Save this comparison

Save this comparison

Add Product

Recommended Comparisons

    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Avalara

    Score8.4 out of 10
    N/AAvalara 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.

    $69

    per month per state

    Canopy Practice Management

    Score7.7 out of 10
    N/ACanopy Practice Management is designed to help accounting firms keep all parties on the same page. It includes essential tools for enabling communication between clients and your team.N/A
    Pricing
    AvalaraCanopy Practice Management
    Editions & Modules
    Core Compliance + SST
    $69
    per month per state
    Core Compliance
    $79
    per month per state
    Custom
    Custom
    per year
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    AvalaraCanopy Practice Management
    Free Trial
    NoNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    YesNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeOptionalNo setup fee
    Additional DetailsCore Compliance: $79/state/month - Avalara AvaTax with AvaTax Exemptions for exemption management - Avalara Managed Returns — filing, remittance, and notice management - Compliance support and audit readiness - Business system integrations (ERP, ecommerce, accounting) - Nexus monitoring across all 50 states *Annual revenue less than $50M; Limited integrations Core Compliance + SST Services: $69/state/month - Everything in Core Compliance package - SST program enrollment - State-sponsored registration in participating SST states - Tax calculation in SST states — state-funded for qualifying sellers - Returns filing and remittance in participating states — states cover the cost - Avalara-backed liability for calculation errors in participating SST states - Audit support — audit inquiries handled by Avalara on your behalf - Single registration ID across all participating SST states *Annual revenue less than $50M; Limited integrations Custom: - A solution configured to your specific business scope and compliance needs - Advanced compliance support for complex tax scenarios - Multi-entity management and consolidated reporting - Customized services and workflow configuration - Dedicated compliance guidance and support *Custom plans are flexible and include integration with the systems your business uses. Avalara has 1,400+ signed partner integrations.—
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    AvalaraCanopy Practice Management
    Considered Both Products
    Avalara
    No answer on this topic
    Canopy
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    93%
    Would buy again
    261 Answers
    71%
    Would buy again
    5 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    92%
    Delivers good value for the price
    233 Answers
    86%
    Delivers good value for the price
    6 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    94%
    Happy with the feature set
    273 Answers
    86%
    Happy with the feature set
    6 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    87%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    177 Answers
    80%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    4 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    81%
    Implementation went as expected
    185 Answers
    100%
    Implementation went as expected
    7 Answers
    Features
    AvalaraCanopy Practice Management
    Type of tax
    Comparison of Type of tax features of Avalara and Canopy Practice Management
    Feature
    Avalara
    8.2
    390 Ratings
    7% above category average
    Canopy Practice Management
    -
    Ratings
    Sales and Use Taxes9.1385 Ratings00 Ratings
    Cross-border Taxes7.890 Ratings00 Ratings
    VAT / GST Taxes7.676 Ratings00 Ratings
    Energy and Fuel Taxes8.233 Ratings00 Ratings
    Tax Reporting & Compliance
    Comparison of Tax Reporting & Compliance features of Avalara and Canopy Practice Management
    Feature
    Avalara
    7.9
    409 Ratings
    1% above category average
    Canopy Practice Management
    -
    Ratings
    Geolocation for Tax Assessment8.3230 Ratings00 Ratings
    3rd-Party Software Integrations8.3305 Ratings00 Ratings
    Tax Data Reporting8.1358 Ratings00 Ratings
    Compliance Administration Management7.9265 Ratings00 Ratings
    Tax Exemption Processing8.0271 Ratings00 Ratings
    Tax Document Management8.3287 Ratings00 Ratings
    Complex Tax Scenario Management6.6180 Ratings00 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    AvalaraCanopy Practice Management
    Small Businesses
    Intuit Lacerte
    Score9.4 out of 10
    No answers on this topic
    Medium-sized Companies
    Lappa
    Score8.7 out of 10
    No answers on this topic
    Enterprises
    Vertex
    Score8.8 out of 10
    No answers on this topic
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    AvalaraCanopy Practice Management
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.3
    (572 ratings)
    9.0
    (13 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    10.0
    (37 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Usability
    8.7
    (564 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Availability
    8.3
    (11 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Performance
    8.3
    (11 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Support Rating
    6.3
    (25 ratings)
    1.0
    (1 ratings)
    In-Person Training
    8.0
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Online Training
    9.0
    (4 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    9.3
    (199 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Configurability
    7.9
    (8 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    7.9
    (14 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    9.3
    (10 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Vendor post-sale
    8.1
    (11 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Vendor pre-sale
    7.4
    (11 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    AvalaraCanopy Practice Management
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Avalara
    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.
    Read full review
    Canopy
    If you want to have an all in one solution for managing you clients (from sales lead to loyal client) this is the answer. We rarely have to use other systems to take a client from a lead to completing their taxes or representation case. It's also given us the freedom to switch our business model to focus on value added pricing and shift to be an advisory focused firm. If you want to pump out hundreds of returns and don't care about managing your clients on a long term basis because you're a quantity over quality shop, you may not find value in the software.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    Avalara
    • Establishes the connection with the appropriate municipal entity,
    • Provides ample time for review of the sales and use tax liability,
    • Submits the returns in accordance with the requirements of the respective municipal entity.
    • Maintains historical record of each remittance.
    • Allows for easy retrieval of past returns.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Canopy
    • As TheCPATaxProblemSolver, Canopy is a great timesaver in helping me complete IRS Offer In Compromises. An Offer in Compromise (OIC) is an IRS program that allows taxpayers to settle their liabilities for less than the full amount owed.
    • I use analytics contained in the state-of-the-art Canopy tax resolution software to calculate smart recommendations based on each unique case to arrive at the best solution and prepare successful cases.
    • Canopy tax has an all in one practice management software. It features Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Document Management, Workflow Management, as well as Billing and Invoicing
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    Avalara
    • Avalara's State Registrations option is pretty expensive and should be quicker and cheaper
    • Avalara's State Filing Setup is not coordinated with their State Registrations, so you still have to set up manually what they just registered for you.
    • Even if Avalara has all of your data, they won't set up a state filing if you miss a deadline of the 20th of the current month they won't file that month, even though they have all of the transactions. (This could happen when a new state is selected for tax calculation but the state registration hasn't been completed yet.) They should allow you to set up the returns by the first of the month it is filed in at the least.
    • Avalara's extractor is very base and limited; it can't extract multiple lines into Avalara, it takes an entire invoice and inputs it as one line. We were told after frequent calls that it works that way by design. Those out there who file returns on a regular basis can identify the problem with this scenario and why this won't work for tax filing.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Canopy
    • Connectivity with Outlook for email tracking - the connection is sometimes lost and there is no notification. You just look for your email trail and there is nothing.
    • Electronic signatures for multiple contacts on one document with some fields being optional would be a great help.
    • Being able to see contact transcripts in the client record view versus just the transcript screen would be more efficient.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    Avalara
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Canopy
    No answers on this topic
    Usability
    Avalara
    Overall, Avalara has been an excellent resource for the company. We highly recommend it. Once you get familiar with the software it's not hard to navigate and use for your business' needs. There are reports for any type of tax detail you need from individual jurisdiction detail to a comprehensive summary of all states filing or not filing in.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Canopy
    No answers on this topic
    Reliability and Availability
    Avalara
    I have been using Avalara for years and do not remember ever having an outage during working hours. The service is accurate and dependable.
    Read full review
    Canopy
    No answers on this topic
    Performance
    Avalara
    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
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Canopy
    No answers on this topic
    Support Rating
    Avalara
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Canopy
    We had to contact the company many times because of the problems we were encountering. They were not helpful in any way
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    In-Person Training
    Avalara
    I wasn't here when they first started with Avalara.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Canopy
    No answers on this topic
    Online Training
    Avalara
    The videos go too fast; I kept having to pause them and go back. They don't allow for any practice transactions or provide training materials.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Canopy
    No answers on this topic
    Implementation Rating
    Avalara
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Canopy
    No answers on this topic
    Alternatives Considered
    Avalara
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Canopy
    Canopy works efficiently for all the companies, more so the CPA firms and other programs have no such advancement. The existence of an individualized client portal from Canopy is a remarkable step. Canopy records the due dates for a project and checks them when they are near or notifies the user.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Scalability
    Avalara
    It is usable across all departments
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Canopy
    No answers on this topic
    Return on Investment
    Avalara
    • With Avalara, manual tax reporting and calculations have been reduced drastically, reducing manual effort and increasing efficiency.
    • Since it is integrated with Sage Intacct, reporting in both Sage Intacct and Avalara is well balanced, and reporting with tax authorities has been handled well.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Canopy
    • We have eliminated our admin position as our tasks are more streamlined.
    • We can support a year-round client demand breaking the season-to-season cash cycle.
    • We're looking to become 100% remote/virtual helping clients all over the country/world within the next 12 months due to this cloud solution.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots

    Avalara Screenshots

    Screenshot of the Avalara portal homepageScreenshot of returns, appearing in the Avalara portalScreenshot of transactionsScreenshot of reportsScreenshot of jurisdiction details