Avalara vs Xero | TrustRadius

What users are saying about

Score 8.8 out of 10

Based on 526 reviews and ratings

Score 8.6 out of 10

Based on 336 reviews and ratings

Feature Rating Comparison

Avalara

Xero

Sales and Use Taxes

Cross-border Taxes

VAT / GST Taxes

Energy and Fuel Taxes

Avalara

Xero

Geolocation for Tax Assessment

3rd-Party Software Integrations

Tax Data Reporting

Compliance Administration Management

Tax Exemption Processing

Tax Document Management

Complex Tax Scenario Management

Avalara

Xero

Pay calculation

Benefit plan administration

Direct deposit files

Salary revision and increment management

Reimbursement management

Avalara

Xero

API for custom integration

Plug-ins

Avalara

Xero

Single sign-on capability

Role-based user permissions

Avalara

Xero

Dashboards

Standard reports

Custom reports

Avalara

Xero

Accounts payable

Accounts receivable

Cash management

Bank reconciliation

Expense management

Time tracking

Fixed asset management

Multi-currency support

Multi-division support

Regulations compliance

Electronic tax filing

Self-service portal

Global Financial Support

Primary and Secondary Ledgers

Intercompany Accounting

Localizations

Journals and Reconciliations

Enterprise Accounting

Configurable Accounting

Centralized Rules Framework

Standardized Processes

Avalara

Xero

Inventory tracking

Automatic reordering

Location management

Manufacturing module

Avalara

Xero

Pricing

Order entry

Credit card processing

Cost of goods sold

Order Orchestration

End-to-end order visibility

Order exception Resolution

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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Sales invoices - can be customized, default due dates set up and reminders sent to facilitate payment
Integrates well with other applications (Dext/Receiptbank) - makes expense reconciliation very efficient and accurate.
Excellent reports - can be customized and valuable for simple or detailed reporting and analysis
Easy to use for those with no accounting background (also suitable for those with advanced accounting knowledge)

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Nicola (Nicki) Morris

CEO | Management Consultant

The Neoteric GroupManagement Consulting, 1-10 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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Overall it is a great platform and quite comprehensive for US based users.
However, if we focus on multinational companies that want to integrate the information of different companies in several countries within the same solution, we find the need to carry out reports outside the platform to provide the accounting structure and compliance necessary in countries outside the US.

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Verified User

Manager in Professional Services

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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Xero 3.5

Based on 26 answers

In addition to the matters covered in this review, my reason for renewing this product is that Xero's functionality and the constant updates that the company provides, makes the software even more business friendly. The software therefore builds a brand loyalty among customers.

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Consultant - Cloud accounting integration, Real Time Accounting

FuturebooksAccounting, 1-10 employees

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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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Xero 8.8

Based on 34 answers

There are not many faults with Xero's overall usability. It is a very simple yet effective financial system to use which serves many benefits. It is very easy to navigate through and the split between different organizations (entities) makes using the system even easier. It is definitely a system which can be learned very quickly.

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Verified User

Analyst in Finance and Accounting

Information Technology & Services Company, 51-200 employees

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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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Xero 9.0

Based on 10 answers

We have been actively using and 100% Xero based for our ecommerce accounting practice for over 4 years. There has on been one real outage for more than 5 minutes. Xero was open and transparent about the outage, what they were doing to resolve the issue, and provided 15 minute updates. Showing how they care about their customers and partners. Plus, showing that their customers care too, were understanding, and went surfing or in our case took a nap. Couldn't run our business without Xero as a partner.

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Co-Founder

Catching CloudsAccounting, 1-10 employees

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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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Xero 10.0

Based on 8 answers

Pages generally load quickly, but it's a fairly common occurrence to have pages taking a bit longer than I'd like to load (as in, 4+ seconds). Occasionally I have to refresh a page to get it to work. Bank feed and integrations tend to be slow in general, but that could easily be due to API latency on the side of the other parties. Most of the time, though, the bank feeds refresh before I login so it's not a huge problem. Not necessarily good performance compared to a local app like QuickBooks desktop, but definitely good performance for a cloud application. Room for growth? yes.

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Verified User

C-Level Executive in Corporate

Information Technology and Services Company, 11-50 employees

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Support Rating

Avalara 7.4

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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Xero 4.1

Based on 19 answers

Support has always been responsive and quickly resolved any questions I have. The only reason I don't give full points is because there's no way to call for immediate help. I'm fine with this because I don't need it badly enough to pay for it

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CFO

RenewableTech VenturesVenture Capital & Private Equity, 11-50 employees

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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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Xero 10.0

Based on 5 answers

All of Xero's training is online and available for anyone (business owner or accountants) to learn and become experts in their system. There is a range of content from product training to real world webinars from their partners. Xero is beautiful accounting software and their training is the same.

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Co-Founder

Catching CloudsAccounting, 1-10 employees

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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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Xero 9.7

Based on 10 answers

If it can be done, time the implementation near a new fiscal year so you can start clean. Otherwise, you have to go back and do historical data from the beginning of the fiscal year, which can be brain draining.

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Owner / Head Trainer

When Hounds FlyConsumer Services, 1-10 employees

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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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Used FreshBooks when the business was first starting out because they had a free plan. Quickly needed more features, and switched to QBO. QBO worked well for many years, but they continually increased their fees and the interface got more and more difficult to use. Also, it had limited support for Mac and their app was always crashing. QBO had great reporting & complex features, but didn't integrate well with time tracking solutions.We evaluated Zoho Books when searching for a QBO replacement. It also had built-in time tracking & project management, with support for other Zoho-based integrations. But its user management was very cumbersome (new users had to be manually added to every single project on the account if you wanted them to track their time). And there was some overlap between Zoho integrations, which seemed difficult to use.Ultimately ended up with Xero on a recommendation from a colleague in a similar business. She liked the simplicity and automated solutions, which I also make use of. I liked the automated invoicing & billing solutions, and the integration with my existing time tracking system. The reporting limitations are still a concern, but so far, I have been able to get all the info I need.

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Designer, Developer & CEO

SOFO STUDIOS, LLCGraphic Design, 1-10 employees

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Scalability

Avalara 9.1

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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Xero 10.0

Based on 6 answers

Over 600 plus apps available for integration and easy to create standard charts of account and report templates to implement across multiple entities. Same pricing regardless of number of transactions or users. Real benefit is variety of integrated apps that allow you to automate processes and have functionality that 10 years ago was only available in ERP systems costing hundreds of thousands.

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Verified User

Partner in Finance and Accounting

Accounting Company, 1-10 employees

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Return on Investment

The ability to stay up to date with the myriad of taxing locals saves a great deal.
Avalara's experience in getting a new user up to speed and set up is substantially faster than trying to do it yourself. And beyond faster, it will be more correct, causing less issues to solve down the road.

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Director of IT

DelascoMedical Device, 11-50 employees

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The streamlining of invoices through the Xero system helped quite a bit.
Implementing the departments, chart of accounts and COGS in Xero for one of our clients, really helped to show where the opportunities for the business were.
The reporting in Xero that we were able to produce mid-month really helped to show where we needed to focus to close the month in the positive.

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Verified User

Manager in Finance and Accounting

Accounting Company, 1-10 employees

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Screenshots

See All (5) Avalara Screenshots

See All (6) Xero Screenshots

Pricing Details

General

Free Trial

Yes

Free/Freemium Version

—

Premium Consulting/Integration Services

Yes

Entry-level set up fee?

No

Avalara Editions & Modules

—

Additional Pricing Details

—

General

Free Trial

Yes

Free/Freemium Version

—

Premium Consulting/Integration Services

—

Entry-level set up fee?

No

Xero Editions & Modules

Edition

Early	$11¹
Growing	$32¹
Established	$62¹

per month

Additional Pricing Details

—

Rating Summary

Avalara

Xero

Avalara

Xero

Avalara

Xero

Avalara

Xero

Avalara

Xero

Avalara

Xero

Avalara

Xero

Avalara

Xero

Avalara

Xero

Avalara

Xero

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