Avalara vs QuickBooks Online

What users are saying about

Score 8.3 out of 10

Based on 567 reviews and ratings

Score 8.1 out of 10

Based on 1294 reviews and ratings

Feature Set Ratings

Type of tax

7.3

Avalara

73%

QuickBooks Online

Feature Set Not Supported

N/A

Avalara ranks higher in 4/4 features

Sales and Use Taxes

8.7

87%

214 Ratings

N/A

0 Ratings

Cross-border Taxes

7.6

76%

45 Ratings

N/A

0 Ratings

VAT / GST Taxes

6.8

68%

38 Ratings

N/A

0 Ratings

Energy and Fuel Taxes

6.0

60%

20 Ratings

N/A

0 Ratings

Tax Reporting & Compliance

7.8

Avalara

78%

QuickBooks Online

Feature Set Not Supported

N/A

Avalara ranks higher in 7/7 features

Geolocation for Tax Assessment

8.0

80%

119 Ratings

N/A

0 Ratings

3rd-Party Software Integrations

7.7

77%

158 Ratings

N/A

0 Ratings

Tax Data Reporting

8.1

81%

180 Ratings

N/A

0 Ratings

Compliance Administration Management

7.4

74%

133 Ratings

N/A

0 Ratings

Tax Exemption Processing

8.1

81%

147 Ratings

N/A

0 Ratings

Tax Document Management

8.0

80%

139 Ratings

N/A

0 Ratings

Complex Tax Scenario Management

7.3

73%

95 Ratings

N/A

0 Ratings

Payroll Management

Avalara

Feature Set Not Supported

N/A

7.1

QuickBooks Online

71%

QuickBooks Online ranks higher in 5/5 features

Pay calculation

N/A

0 Ratings

7.1

71%

68 Ratings

Benefit plan administration

N/A

0 Ratings

6.2

62%

30 Ratings

Direct deposit files

N/A

0 Ratings

7.3

73%

64 Ratings

Salary revision and increment management

N/A

0 Ratings

7.2

72%

44 Ratings

Reimbursement management

N/A

0 Ratings

7.6

76%

45 Ratings

Customization

Avalara

Feature Set Not Supported

N/A

7.3

QuickBooks Online

73%

QuickBooks Online ranks higher in 2/2 features

API for custom integration

N/A

0 Ratings

7.4

74%

54 Ratings

Plug-ins

N/A

0 Ratings

7.2

72%

57 Ratings

Security

Avalara

Feature Set Not Supported

N/A

8.2

QuickBooks Online

82%

QuickBooks Online ranks higher in 2/2 features

Single sign-on capability

N/A

0 Ratings

8.2

82%

80 Ratings

Role-based user permissions

N/A

0 Ratings

8.2

82%

101 Ratings

Reporting & Analytics

Avalara

Feature Set Not Supported

N/A

8.0

QuickBooks Online

80%

QuickBooks Online ranks higher in 3/3 features

Dashboards

N/A

0 Ratings

7.8

78%

120 Ratings

Standard reports

N/A

0 Ratings

8.4

84%

123 Ratings

Custom reports

N/A

0 Ratings

7.8

78%

112 Ratings

General Ledger and Configurable Accounting

Avalara

Feature Set Not Supported

N/A

7.4

QuickBooks Online

74%

QuickBooks Online ranks higher in 21/21 features

Accounts payable

N/A

0 Ratings

8.2

82%

117 Ratings

Accounts receivable

N/A

0 Ratings

8.5

85%

126 Ratings

Cash management

N/A

0 Ratings

7.3

73%

114 Ratings

Bank reconciliation

N/A

0 Ratings

8.4

84%

132 Ratings

Expense management

N/A

0 Ratings

7.6

76%

119 Ratings

Time tracking

N/A

0 Ratings

5.9

59%

55 Ratings

Fixed asset management

N/A

0 Ratings

6.9

69%

52 Ratings

Multi-currency support

N/A

0 Ratings

6.3

63%

23 Ratings

Multi-division support

N/A

0 Ratings

6.4

64%

42 Ratings

Regulations compliance

N/A

0 Ratings

7.7

77%

37 Ratings

Electronic tax filing

N/A

0 Ratings

7.3

73%

61 Ratings

Self-service portal

N/A

0 Ratings

6.6

66%

63 Ratings

Global Financial Support

N/A

0 Ratings

5.8

58%

15 Ratings

Primary and Secondary Ledgers

N/A

0 Ratings

7.3

73%

32 Ratings

Intercompany Accounting

N/A

0 Ratings

7.5

75%

28 Ratings

Localizations

N/A

0 Ratings

8.6

86%

19 Ratings

Journals and Reconciliations

N/A

0 Ratings

8.0

80%

70 Ratings

Enterprise Accounting

N/A

0 Ratings

8.4

84%

25 Ratings

Configurable Accounting

N/A

0 Ratings

7.6

76%

37 Ratings

Centralized Rules Framework

N/A

0 Ratings

7.8

78%

23 Ratings

Standardized Processes

N/A

0 Ratings

6.9

69%

47 Ratings

Inventory Management

Avalara

Feature Set Not Supported

N/A

7.2

QuickBooks Online

72%

QuickBooks Online ranks higher in 4/4 features

Inventory tracking

N/A

0 Ratings

6.6

66%

45 Ratings

Automatic reordering

N/A

0 Ratings

7.5

75%

20 Ratings

Location management

N/A

0 Ratings

6.7

67%

21 Ratings

Manufacturing module

N/A

0 Ratings

8.0

80%

16 Ratings

Order Management

Avalara

Feature Set Not Supported

N/A

7.3

QuickBooks Online

73%

QuickBooks Online ranks higher in 7/7 features

Pricing

N/A

0 Ratings

7.9

79%

55 Ratings

Order entry

N/A

0 Ratings

8.1

81%

52 Ratings

Credit card processing

N/A

0 Ratings

7.4

74%

64 Ratings

Cost of goods sold

N/A

0 Ratings

7.2

72%

67 Ratings

Order Orchestration

N/A

0 Ratings

7.4

74%

19 Ratings

End-to-end order visibility

N/A

0 Ratings

7.1

71%

19 Ratings

Order exception Resolution

N/A

0 Ratings

5.9

59%

18 Ratings

Attribute Ratings

Avalara is rated higher in 2 areas: Likelihood to Recommend, Usability
QuickBooks Online is rated higher in 6 areas: Likelihood to Renew, Availability, Performance, Support Rating, Implementation Rating, Product Scalability

Avalara

81%

328 Ratings

7.5

QuickBooks Online

75%

154 Ratings

Avalara

92%

20 Ratings

10.0

QuickBooks Online

100%

22 Ratings

Avalara

83%

320 Ratings

7.9

QuickBooks Online

79%

70 Ratings

Avalara

84%

14 Ratings

10.0

QuickBooks Online

100%

7 Ratings

Avalara

85%

14 Ratings

10.0

QuickBooks Online

100%

5 Ratings

Avalara

42%

23 Ratings

6.9

QuickBooks Online

69%

67 Ratings

Avalara

80%

2 Ratings

QuickBooks Online

N/A

0 Ratings

Avalara

73%

3 Ratings

QuickBooks Online

N/A

0 Ratings

Avalara

65%

389 Ratings

10.0

QuickBooks Online

100%

7 Ratings

Avalara

84%

7 Ratings

10.0

QuickBooks Online

100%

1 Rating

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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Tom Berkompas

Chief Financial Officer

US DigitalElectrical & Electronic Manufacturing, 51-200 employees

View all 328 answers on this topic

It enables me to do a P&L for each specific program as requested by the county for the grant money that they give us.
It enables me to do [an] organizational budget as well as a budget for each specific program
It enables the accountant and the auditor access at any time for transparency

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Roxanne Jacobs

Executive Director

Grandma's Place, Inc.Non-profit Organization Management, 11-50 employees

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Cons

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.

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Bruce Griffith

Senior Accountant

AdventSource Inc.Religious Institutions, 11-50 employees

View all 328 answers on this topic

The budgets feature leaves a lot be desired - difficult and clunky to populate and maintain.
Reporting for Budget vs Actual is available but the ability to reforecast based on updated data is not.
The rules function to default common types of expenses isn't perfect and will get confused if like amounts or a number of similar items present.

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Charles Fashana, MBA

Chief Operating Officer

19 IDEASMarketing & Advertising, 11-50 employees

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Pricing Details

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

—

General

Free Trial

Yes

Free/Freemium Version

—

Premium Consulting/Integration Services

—

Entry-level set up fee?

Starting Price

$15 per month

QuickBooks Online Editions & Modules

Edition

Simple Start	$25¹
Plus	$75¹
Advanced	$150¹
Self-Employed	$15¹

per month

Additional Pricing Details

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Likelihood to Renew

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.

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Jessica Gorbett

Accounting Manager

Cavender's Boot CityRetail, 501-1000 employees

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QuickBooks Online 10.0

Based on 22 answers

It like the product 'right out of the box' and I trust Intuit will continually improve it over the years based on my experience with their desktop products. The large providers of Apps makes customizing the entire package relatively easy and seamless for a wide variety of business types.

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John H. Adair CPA

Principal

Adair Advisory GroupAccounting, 1-10 employees

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Usability

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.

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Andy Webber

Account Executive

Albert | Learn By DoingComputer Software, 11-50 employees

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QuickBooks Online 7.9

Based on 70 answers

Do NOT use their premium payroll. It's expensive and [I feel like] their customer service is horrible. I spent almost 4 hours trying to get an answer to a simple question about a 941 form they filed. They kept transferring me around to various people and every single time they couldn't find the 941 form I had a question on. I had to do a screenshare to show them where it was! I got disconnected three times and they never called back. They also told me that I would have to talk to the IRS at one point. I refused and told them that they were filing these forms on our behalf, they were doing the calculations so they should be able to answer my questions. I asked several times to talk to a supervisor and they wouldn't transfer me to one. They just said that they could put in a request for a supervisor to call me back in 24-48 hours! It was just unbelievable how horrible it was.

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Michelle Jones

Finance Manager

Michelle Jones Accountant, LLCAccounting, 1-10 employees

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Reliability and Availability

Avalara 8.4

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.

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Elaine Ware

Accounting Ma

Digital Ally IncElectrical/Electronic Manufacturing, 51-200 employees

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QuickBooks Online 10.0

Based on 7 answers

We have rarely had outages in the last 10 years. I can only recall 2 times in the last 10 years where we were not able to access our client files.

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Verified User

Manager in Finance and Accounting

Accounting Company, 11-50 employees

View all 7 answers on this topic

Performance

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

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Jessica Gorbett

Accounting Manager

Cavender's Boot CityRetail, 501-1000 employees

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QuickBooks Online 10.0

Based on 5 answers

There are tab issues. When I tab the field doesn't highlight and I have to backspace or delete what is in the field. Happens on the memo field and sometimes other fields. Very time consuming.

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Colleen Walker

Owner

Number Control Services LLCAccounting, 1-10 employees

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Support Rating

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.

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Verified User

Manager in Finance and Accounting

Veterinary Company, 201-500 employees

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QuickBooks Online 6.9

Based on 67 answers

Support is great, all incidents been resolved. Quickbooks Online forum is very well organized and helpful. I like the fact that they let the community contribute in resolving issues. Most or many of your answers can be found online. You can also get help on YouTube, but the easiest way to get assistance is through their chat system.

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Verified User

Manager in Customer Service

Cosmetics Company, 1-10 employees

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In-Person Training

Avalara 8.0

Based on 2 answers

I wasn't here when they first started with Avalara.

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Janey Graves

Sales Tax Administrator

The Merit Distribution Group, LLCWholesale, 201-500 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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Kathleen Gage

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 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.

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Verified User

Manager in Human Resources

Wholesale Company, 1001-5000 employees

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QuickBooks Online 10.0

Based on 7 answers

The person in charge of QB needs to be very accurate with record keeping and is recommended to stay on top of tasks. The biggest issue we have is reconciliation, and those issues occur only when too much time has occurred between reconciliations

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Adrienne Gould-Choquette, P.E.

Principal Engineer

Adicot, Inc.Mechanical Or Industrial Engineering, 1-10 employees

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Alternatives Considered

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.

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Jere Allen

CFO (Chief Financial Officer)

The Lab Depot IncConsumer Goods, 11-50 employees

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I have used Wave Accounting for another business. I selected QuickBooks Online over Wave because of the features available from QuickBooks. Wave is great since it is free, but I feel that paying for QuickBooks Online is worth it for the features. In addition there is such a robust support network and training available for QuickBooks.

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Lukas Sundahl, MBA

Founder

Sunderful Consulting, LLCAccounting, 1-10 employees

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Scalability

Avalara 8.4

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

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Verified User

Employee in Finance and Accounting

Building Materials Company, 501-1000 employees

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QuickBooks Online 10.0

Based on 1 answer

As we have grown along our professional path, we have also expanded our use of QB. The scalability is easy and features seem to be waiting for you until you need them. We have increased profits by over 10x from our first year in business to the current and have yet to find a reason to look elsewhere

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Adrienne Gould-Choquette, P.E.

Principal Engineer

Adicot, Inc.Mechanical Or Industrial Engineering, 1-10 employees

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Return on Investment

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.

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Verified User

Supervisor in Finance and Accounting

Industrial Automation Company, 501-1000 employees

View all 328 answers on this topic

Overall, QuickBooks Online is a great investment for the company of our size (small software startup).
QuickBooks Online supports all the key functions of our company's accounting team.
QuickBooks Online definitely made the life of our accounting team much easier which let us focus on more important issues outside of bookkeeping.

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Serguei Bykov

Accounting Manager

ManyChat Inc.Computer Software, 51-200 employees

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Screenshots

See All (5) Avalara Screenshots

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