What users are saying about
Avalara
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Top Rated
567 Ratings
<a href='https://www.trustradius.com/static/about-trustradius-scoring' target='_blank' rel='nofollow noopener'>trScore algorithm: Learn more.</a>Score 8.3 out of 100
Based on 567 reviews and ratings
14 Ratings
<a href='https://www.trustradius.com/static/about-trustradius-scoring' target='_blank' rel='nofollow noopener'>trScore algorithm: Learn more.</a>Score 9 out of 100
Based on 14 reviews and ratings
Feature Set Ratings
- Intuit Lacerte ranks higher in 2 feature sets: Type of tax, Tax Reporting & Compliance
Type of tax

7.3
Avalara
73%
8.3
Intuit Lacerte
83%
Intuit Lacerte ranks higher in 3/4 features
Intuit Lacerte ranks higher in 3/4 features
Sales and Use Taxes

8.7
87%
214 Ratings
8.0
80%
1 Rating
Cross-border Taxes

7.6
76%
45 Ratings
8.0
80%
1 Rating
VAT / GST Taxes

6.8
68%
38 Ratings
8.0
80%
1 Rating
Energy and Fuel Taxes

6.1
61%
20 Ratings
9.0
90%
1 Rating
Tax Reporting & Compliance

7.8
Avalara
78%
8.2
Intuit Lacerte
82%
Intuit Lacerte ranks higher in 5/7 features
Intuit Lacerte ranks higher in 5/7 features
Geolocation for Tax Assessment

8.0
80%
119 Ratings
8.0
80%
1 Rating
3rd-Party Software Integrations

7.7
77%
158 Ratings
3.1
31%
2 Ratings
Tax Data Reporting

8.1
81%
180 Ratings
10.0
100%
2 Ratings
Compliance Administration Management

7.4
74%
133 Ratings
10.0
100%
2 Ratings
Tax Exemption Processing

8.1
81%
147 Ratings
8.9
89%
2 Ratings
Tax Document Management

8.1
81%
139 Ratings
N/A
0 Ratings
Complex Tax Scenario Management

7.3
73%
95 Ratings
9.0
90%
1 Rating
Attribute Ratings
- Intuit Lacerte is rated higher in 2 areas: Likelihood to Recommend, Support Rating
Likelihood to Recommend

8.1
Avalara
81%
328 Ratings
9.0
Intuit Lacerte
90%
2 Ratings
Likelihood to Renew

9.2
Avalara
92%
20 Ratings
Intuit Lacerte
N/A
0 Ratings
Usability

8.3
Avalara
83%
320 Ratings
Intuit Lacerte
N/A
0 Ratings
Availability

8.5
Avalara
85%
14 Ratings
Intuit Lacerte
N/A
0 Ratings
Performance

8.5
Avalara
85%
14 Ratings
Intuit Lacerte
N/A
0 Ratings
Support Rating

4.2
Avalara
42%
23 Ratings
9.0
Intuit Lacerte
90%
2 Ratings
In-Person Training

8.0
Avalara
80%
2 Ratings
Intuit Lacerte
N/A
0 Ratings
Online Training

7.3
Avalara
73%
3 Ratings
Intuit Lacerte
N/A
0 Ratings
Implementation Rating

6.5
Avalara
65%
389 Ratings
Intuit Lacerte
N/A
0 Ratings
Product Scalability

8.5
Avalara
85%
7 Ratings
Intuit Lacerte
N/A
0 Ratings
Likelihood to Recommend
Avalara
I haven't used other sales tax service providers, so I can't compare it to others. However, I have found it to be extremely necessary as we grow and expand into other states so that we aren't spending all our time figuring out the complex tax laws, jurisdictions, rates, etc. for our customer sales. It gives us peace of mind that the correct taxes are being filed and we are compliant. There are definitely areas for improvement, but it's a great service.

Verified User
Employee in Finance and Accounting
Wholesale Company, 51-200 employeesIntuit Lacerte
Lacerte helps to serve a great variety of clients and businesses, it has over 5,700 forms. It also supports multi-state, K-1s, and more. It suits for power users with high business inflow. Its useful for a CPA who is processing a high value firm or individual with zero errors. The error diagnostic feature covers more than 25k error checks. This is less applicable to CPA's whose are managing regular individual 1040 routines.
IT consultant
Ram AssociatesAccounting, 11-50 employees
Pros
Avalara
- Avatax stays current with all the changes in rates and does an excellent job of calculating the correct sales tax to charge.
- The reporting interface for sales tax reports is easy to use and once you set up a report you can save it as a favorite and rerun it any time with one click. Their UI on the reporting is simple and provides a minimum number of clicks to get the data you want and export it to Excel where every number lives whether it belongs there or not!
Chief Financial Officer
US DigitalElectrical & Electronic Manufacturing, 51-200 employees
Intuit Lacerte
- Very easy to learn and use.
- Simple, customized report generation

Verified User
Paraprofessional in Other
Accounting Company, 51-200 employeesCons
Avalara
- In the beginning our programmer wished to speak directly with a programmer at Avalara so he could have some specific questions answered. Instead he was referred to a forum where he had to post his questions. This delayed our implementation of Avatax.
- I'm not sure if there is help available to assist in learning how to reconcile sales tax returns or not. We basically had to figure out how to do that ourselves.
Senior Accountant
AdventSource Inc.Religious Institutions, 11-50 employees
Intuit Lacerte
- The updates from IRS to Lacerte need to be improved, so far so good.
- Reporting needs to be improved. Feature like sorting categories. scorp/ind/non-profit
- Tax summaries can be improved - like the differentiation between rental income & expenses. I trust this feature would be a great help.
IT consultant
Ram AssociatesAccounting, 11-50 employees
Pricing Details
Avalara
General
Free Trial
Yes
Free/Freemium Version
—Premium Consulting/Integration Services
Yes
Entry-level set up fee?
Optional
Starting Price
$21 per month
Avalara Editions & Modules
—
Additional Pricing Details
—Intuit Lacerte
General
Free Trial
—Free/Freemium Version
—Premium Consulting/Integration Services
—Entry-level set up fee?
No
Starting Price
$0
Intuit Lacerte Editions & Modules
Edition
Lacerte REP (Fast Path Only) | $400 |
---|---|
Lacerte 200 - Federal 1040 | Contact for pricing |
Lacerte Unlimited Modules | Contact for pricing |
- none
Additional Pricing Details
—Likelihood to Renew
Avalara
Avalara 9.2
Based on 20 answers
I have not been able to find a company that does it better than Avalara. I still have lots of problems, but we are working through them. Based on other demos i have seen and talking with peers in other companies, this is the best.
Accounting Manager
Cavender's Boot CityRetail, 501-1000 employees
Intuit Lacerte
No score
No answers yet
No answers on this topic
Usability
Avalara
Avalara 8.3
Based on 320 answers
I give Avalara a rating of 10 because of how easy it has been to train various, lower level employees to use the platform with fidelity. Even in my own training as an Account Executive who is responsible for calculating taxes on new deals, I was able to pick up the Avalara platform fairly quickly because of how easy and intuitive it is to use.
Account Executive
Albert | Learn By DoingComputer Software, 11-50 employees
Intuit Lacerte
No score
No answers yet
No answers on this topic
Reliability and Availability
Avalara
Avalara 8.5
Based on 14 answers
I have been using Avalara for years and do not remember ever having an outage during working hours. The service is accurate and dependable.
Accounting Ma
Digital Ally IncElectrical/Electronic Manufacturing, 51-200 employees
Intuit Lacerte
No score
No answers yet
No answers on this topic
Performance
Avalara
Avalara 8.5
Based on 14 answers
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
Accounting Manager
Cavender's Boot CityRetail, 501-1000 employees
Intuit Lacerte
No score
No answers yet
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
Avalara
Avalara 4.2
Based on 23 answers
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.

Verified User
Manager in Finance and Accounting
Veterinary Company, 201-500 employeesIntuit Lacerte
Intuit Lacerte 9.0
Based on 2 answers
Lacerte customer service has been great. They are very knowledgeable about the product and can help resolve problems quickly.

Verified User
Paraprofessional in Other
Accounting Company, 51-200 employeesIn-Person Training
Avalara
Avalara 8.0
Based on 2 answers
I wasn't here when they first started with Avalara.
Sales Tax Administrator
The Merit Distribution Group, LLCWholesale, 201-500 employees
Intuit Lacerte
No score
No answers yet
No answers on this topic
Online Training
Avalara
Avalara 7.3
Based on 3 answers
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.
Sr. Accountant
DVL Group IncEnvironmental Services, 51-200 employees
Intuit Lacerte
No score
No answers yet
No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
Avalara
Avalara 6.5
Based on 389 answers
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.

Verified User
Manager in Human Resources
Wholesale Company, 1001-5000 employeesIntuit Lacerte
No score
No answers yet
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
Avalara
We've looked at some other products but have been satisfied enough with Avalara that we've never had an interest in moving to another platform. It integrates well with our systems and does a great job for us. We have had some relationship management turnover and unmet expectations along with that experience, but generally have been able to resolve the issues.
CFO (Chief Financial Officer)
The Lab Depot IncConsumer Goods, 11-50 employees
Intuit Lacerte
We have been using Proseries along with Lacerte. As I said, Lacerte is much easier and faster when compared with Proseries.
IT consultant
Ram AssociatesAccounting, 11-50 employees
Scalability
Avalara
Avalara 8.5
Based on 7 answers
There is no change that has to happen as your company grows, Avalara continues to do it's job for any size company

Verified User
Employee in Finance and Accounting
Building Materials Company, 501-1000 employeesIntuit Lacerte
No score
No answers yet
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
Avalara
- Prior to Avalara, we had two full-time people doing nothing but tax returns. Now, we only review data via reports within Avalara and it takes one person about 2 hours a month.
- Certificate exemption was a manual process we tracked on an excel spreadsheet. It was not always easy to read and wrought with human error. CertCapture has made this process digital and saved us countless amounts of time.
- With Avalara managing the taxation through our ERP, we rarely have to worry about the taxation not being correct on our invoices to our customers. This saves time in having to investigate tax rates by state, county, and jurisdiction.

Verified User
Supervisor in Finance and Accounting
Industrial Automation Company, 501-1000 employeesIntuit Lacerte
- It has helped meet overall business goals.
- Gives you the ability to add in and purchase only what you need.

Verified User
Paraprofessional in Other
Accounting Company, 51-200 employees