Avalara vs Intuit Lacerte | TrustRadius

What users are saying about

Score 8.8 out of 10

Based on 525 reviews and ratings

Score 9.5 out of 10

Based on 3 reviews and ratings

Feature Rating Comparison

Avalara

Intuit Lacerte

Sales and Use Taxes

Cross-border Taxes

VAT / GST Taxes

Energy and Fuel Taxes

Avalara

Intuit Lacerte

Geolocation for Tax Assessment

3rd-Party Software Integrations

Tax Data Reporting

Compliance Administration Management

Tax Exemption Processing

Tax Document Management

Complex Tax Scenario Management

Pros

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!

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Chief Financial Officer

US DigitalElectrical & Electronic Manufacturing, 51-200 employees

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Very easy to learn and use.
Simple, customized report generation

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Verified User

Paraprofessional in Other

Accounting Company, 51-200 employees

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Cons

CertCapture can take many days to validate a certificate, and/or does not provide explanation as to why a certificate was not validated.
Submitting cases to Avalara is not helpful. Once an answer has been provided, the case is immediately closed and no helpful dialogue is allowed.
When a mistake on return filing occurs, whether customer or Avalara's, correction of the error takes far too long.

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Verified User

Manager in Finance and Accounting

Non-profit Organization Management Company, 51-200 employees

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Technical glitches
Frequent software updates

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Verified User

Paraprofessional in Other

Accounting Company, 51-200 employees

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Likelihood to Renew

Avalara 9.5

Based on 18 answers

Nothing is perfect, so I suppose I would not give it a 10, but it has earned a high rating because it really does work well. Also, if any issues have arose, avalara has many ways to be contacted for assistance and has always helped in a timely manner

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Matt Farmer, CPA, CGMA

Controller

Keypoint IntelligenceInformation Services, 51-200 employees

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No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

Usability

Avalara 8.8

Based on 286 answers

Once integrated and properly set up, the software does most of the work for you. There are occasional hiccups, but that is true of all software. A lot of the ease depends on to what extent you let the platform do for you versus what you take on. For us, it decides which transaction to tax, assesses the tax rate based on the specific jurisdiction (and any changes in the tax rate), stores the exemption certificates and files the returns. Mostly what we are responsible for is reconciling the ledgers to the tax liability worksheets. It turns a complex and long set of tasks into a fairly simple and quick process

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CFO (Chief Financial Officer)

The Lab Depot IncConsumer Goods, 11-50 employees

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No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

Reliability and Availability

Avalara 8.7

Based on 13 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.

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Accounting Ma

Digital Ally IncElectrical/Electronic Manufacturing, 51-200 employees

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No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

Performance

Avalara 8.9

Based on 13 answers

For the most part don't have a problem with Avalara performance. On the few occasions I've had a issue isn't has been resolved quickly and usually without having to contact support.

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Sr. Accountant

DVL Group IncEnvironmental Services, 51-200 employees

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No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

Support Rating

Avalara 7.2

Based on 20 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.

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Verified User

Manager in Finance and Accounting

Veterinary Company, 201-500 employees

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Intuit Lacerte 9.0

Based on 1 answer

Lacerte customer service has been great. They are very knowledgeable about the product and can help resolve problems quickly.

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Verified User

Paraprofessional in Other

Accounting Company, 51-200 employees

View all 1 answers on this topic

In-Person Training

Avalara 8.0

Based on 2 answers

not applicable

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Tax Analyst

Core-MarkTobacco, 1001-5000 employees

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No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

Online Training

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.

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Sr. Accountant

DVL Group IncEnvironmental Services, 51-200 employees

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No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

Implementation Rating

Avalara 8.0

Based on 363 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.

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Verified User

Manager in Human Resources

Wholesale Company, 1001-5000 employees

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No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

Alternatives Considered

We have looked at TaxJar as an alternative to Avalara. TaxJar is significantly less expensive than Avalara, but what we ran into during our evaluation was TaxJar did not have the needed connectors with NetSuite/SuiteCommerce. Also since Shopify is natively connected to Avalara, TaxJar was not able to connect with Shopify, but would have to have orders exported to NetSuite to be run by TaxJar after the customer had been charged tax in Shopify based on the Avalara calculations.

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Financial Controller

Seeking Health, LLCRetail, 11-50 employees

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Lacerte is easier to use and gives you everything you need in one place.

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Verified User

Paraprofessional in Other

Accounting Company, 51-200 employees

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Scalability

Avalara 9.0

Based on 6 answers

There is no change that has to happen as your company grows, Avalara continues to do it's job for any size company

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Verified User

Employee in Finance and Accounting

Building Materials Company, 501-1000 employees

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No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

Return on Investment

It saved me about half a day's work each month, as well as probably 2-3 days of work for the financial analyst per month.
Having nexus in only 4 states still required a lot of manual calculations each month, so saves many hours of work for the team each month.

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Verified User

Analyst in Finance and Accounting

Computer Software Company, 51-200 employees

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It has helped meet overall business goals.
Gives you the ability to add in and purchase only what you need.

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Verified User

Paraprofessional in Other

Accounting Company, 51-200 employees

View all 1 answers on this topic

Screenshots

See All (5) Avalara Screenshots

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Pricing Details

General

Free Trial

Yes

Free/Freemium Version

—

Premium Consulting/Integration Services

Yes

Entry-level set up fee?

No

Avalara Editions & Modules

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Additional Pricing Details

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General

Free Trial

—

Free/Freemium Version

—

Premium Consulting/Integration Services

—

Entry-level set up fee?

No

Intuit Lacerte Editions & Modules

Edition

Lacerte REP (Fast Path Only)	$400
Lacerte 200 - Federal 1040	Contact for pricing
Lacerte Unlimited Modules	Contact for pricing

Additional Pricing Details

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Rating Summary

Avalara

Intuit Lacerte

Avalara

Intuit Lacerte

Avalara

Intuit Lacerte

Avalara

Intuit Lacerte

Avalara

Intuit Lacerte

Avalara

Intuit Lacerte

Avalara

Intuit Lacerte

Avalara

Intuit Lacerte

Avalara

Intuit Lacerte

Avalara

Intuit Lacerte

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