Spectrum Cloud vs. Vertex

I have used Vertex since the very beginning of my career. I have always found the information clear, and easy to use. The documentation to use the product was thorough. We file returns in all 45 states that have sales / use taxes and having the ability to import data, key additional data in and print out a signature ready return has made life easy. I've never wanted to look at any other return preparation software as none of them come close to the product that Vertex created.

Incentivized

• The content is very detailed and helps companies make the correct indirect tax decisions.
• The interfaces that O Series has with the major ERPs as well as the smaller ones gives it an advantage in the marketplace.
• The user interface is very intuitive and easy to use.

Incentivized

• Critical changes! I feel they should be more aware of changes in the states. Sometimes we get these changes from them after we file our returns! I feel they should be up on any changes that are important for returns.
• Support is a big issue. Vertex used to be excellent with their support. When I called with a question I felt I was speaking to a professional who knows the product inside and out. Now when I call I get someone who says "That's a realy good question I will have to look into that" Then days go by before I get an answer. Sometimes I don't get an answer at all. This was not the case in prior years.

Incentivized

We are satisfied with the overall performance of Vertex. The software has provided my company with many efficiencies. We have shorted our audits and found that many audits are happy that we are using Vertex to calculate our taxes. We no longer need to worry about updating our rates each month since Vertex sends us a file to upload

Incentivized

Great program, but a lot of features are still manual. It's difficult to set recurring monthly reports in a time frame of "Previous Month" and we have to kick them off. We have to manually delete reports, there isn't an option to choose multiple at once. Data that is transferred into Vertex returns is quirky as well, taking multiple steps to update lines of data.

Incentivized

No, we haven't faced this type of situation. Vertex is always available when needed. Even if there is a slow network, it manages it very well and produces accurate results.

Incentivized

Our Vertex performance is good, although we are now experiencing Error 502 when adding additional data points to our transaction tester single tests. At Exchange, I was told to reach out to support....that most likely the On Demand system needed some additional CPU resource added. I have a currently open ticket, that has not yet been fixed on this matter

Incentivized

Level 1 support has always been kind and understanding but times they do not always provided the technical help sometimes their response or protocol is not related. I feel that I have to beg for a developer to look over my issue. On the other hand, there have been times a Level 1 support person has taken the time to research my issue and provide valid feedback & solution

Incentivized

By training I'm referring to our engagement with Vertex Consulting's professional services group. Each person on the engagement had prior leasing industry tax experience and most if not all used O Series before joining Vertex. Consultants with industry specific tax experience provide so much more than just "training". They are able to engage in deep tax technical discussions with actual experience while in private practice. This coupled with having visibility to how numerous other leasing peers approach similar tax issues is a huge plus on top of the standard training.

Incentivized

Vertex has offered multiple webinars for the products we have purchased that are informative and helpful. I've also attended a few of the Vertex annual conferences where I was able to strength my knowledge of Vertex. I also found that their online library and videos can be helpful in resolving issues and answering questions.

Incentivized

The implementation is challenging, make no mistake but will provide much value over time. Make sure you have full support of IT and your major stakeholders in your company. I found that while many people claimed to understand tax was important, they had no idea how deep tax in entrenched throughout the lease life cycle.

Incentivized

Vertex is more flexible and by using Vertex you need fewer people to maintain tax calculations. In addition, Tax rate update is maintained by Vertex, so you do not need to track and support tax rate update.

Incentivized

There needs to be a time-consuming setup both in the Enterprise Resource Platform and in Vertex and the related tools as well but once this is all established, Vertex is very proficient at calculating Sales and Use Tax in the USA and in Canada with GST/HST, as well as several of the provinces where we are located. As we added plants in different jurisdictions via greenfield expansion and aquisition, Vertex was able to integrate those as long as the tax department is fully informed of the system.

Incentivized

• Vertex for the solution that we needed was half as much as the old tax software that we used
• Our past solutions have not been able to exempt certain customers, so we were spending a lot of time manually adjusting sales orders in two systems (Netsuite and BigCommerce)
• We are now able to add more complex tax rules, such as charging sales tax on digital, food, and clothing items differently than we were able to before

Incentivized