Overview
What is Avalara?
Avalara AvaTax connects to the software that businesses already have and delivers sales tax decisions based on precise geo-location in more than 12,000 taxing jurisdictions in the U.S.
Thank You for Helping Us Track Nexus!!
Avalara helps a lot!
Avalara Review
So much potential and such disappointing customer experience
Using Avalara Software has been Great for our Company
Satisfied Customer
Indirect Tax
Avalara is great for small businesses
Avalara is what you need for Sales Tax.
Great!
Unforunately no real benefit
Avalara - My Evaluation
The good, the bad and . . .
My professional advice is to try to find an alternative to Avalara!
How Avalara Differs From Its Competitors
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Awards
Products that are considered exceptional by their customers based on a variety of criteria win TrustRadius awards. Learn more about the types of TrustRadius awards to make the best purchase decision. More about TrustRadius Awards
Popular Features
- Sales and Use Taxes (295)8.888%
- Tax Exemption Processing (201)8.383%
- Tax Data Reporting (248)8.383%
- 3rd-Party Software Integrations (223)8.080%
Reviewer Pros & Cons
Pricing
Entry-level set up fee?
- Setup fee optional
Offerings
- Free Trial
- Free/Freemium Version
- Premium Consulting/Integration Services
Starting price (does not include set up fee)
- $21 per month
Product Demos
Avalara AvaTax Demo
Features
Type of tax
A list of the different types of taxes that can be filed using tax compliance software.
- 8.8Sales and Use Taxes(295) Ratings
Software is capable of calculating and filing sales and use taxes.
- 7.8Cross-border Taxes(65) Ratings
Software is capable of calculating and filing taxes, such as customs, across countries.
- 7.3VAT / GST Taxes(56) Ratings
Ability to calculate and manage VAT and GST taxes.
- 8.5Energy and Fuel Taxes(25) Ratings
Ability to calculate and manage energy and/or fuel taxes.
Tax Reporting & Compliance
Activities relating to tax filing, reporting, document management, and exemption certificate processing.
- 8.6Geolocation for Tax Assessment(168) Ratings
Ability to use geolocation, which is more precise than zip codes, for mapping taxes to specific jurisdictions.
- 83rd-Party Software Integrations(223) Ratings
Pre-built integrations with various systems such as ERP, ecommerce, CRM, invoicing and billing, accounting, and procurement applications.
- 8.3Tax Data Reporting(248) Ratings
Ability to export transaction data for tax filing.
- 8.3Compliance Administration Management(191) Ratings
Ability to facilitate tax preparation, filing, and tax remittances across local, state, and federal jurisdictions.
- 8.3Tax Exemption Processing(201) Ratings
Ability to generate, track, exemption certificates from sales invoices.
- 8Tax Document Management(193) Ratings
Collection and storage of tax documents, especially exemption certificates, and ability to retrieve them to use for tax audits.
- 7.1Complex Tax Scenario Management(128) Ratings
Ability to automate handling of tax holidays and other anomalies.
Product Details
- About
- Integrations
- Competitors
- Tech Details
- Downloadables
- FAQs
What is Avalara?
Avalara Features
Type of tax Features
- Supported: Sales and Use Taxes
- Supported: Cross-border Taxes
- Supported: VAT / GST Taxes
- Supported: Energy and Fuel Taxes
Tax Reporting & Compliance Features
- Supported: Geolocation for Tax Assessment
- Supported: 3rd-Party Software Integrations
- Supported: Tax Data Reporting
- Supported: Compliance Administration Management
- Supported: Tax Exemption Processing
- Supported: Tax Document Management
- Supported: Complex Tax Scenario Management
Additional Features
- Supported: Centralized tax management: Unifies sales and use tax calculation, document management, and returns preparation.
- Supported: Integrations: AvaTax connects with more than 700 prebuilt integrations to connect with accounting, ecommerce, POS, and other systems, plus an advanced API.
- Supported: Cloud-based: A software-as-a-service solution, AvaTax updates take effect as soon as they are deployed, helping to ensure the most current information is used.
- Supported: Exemption management: Certificates from vendors are stored electronically for access and to track expiration dates. Automatic renewal requests are sent out before certificates expire.
- Supported: Returns filing and remittance: Returns preparation and remittance in multiple jurisdictions. Avalara Returns can track and manage due dates and payment requirements, enabling users to pay returns with a single source of payment.
- Supported: Lodging: Lodging tax for hotel or rental property are managed with a solution that plugs into reservation software to deliver lodging tax calculations in real time as well as preparation, filing, and remittances of lodge tax returns.
- Supported: Communications: Tax calculations are delivered on an array of communications transactions by directly connecting to a current billing or ERP system, or to an in-house build via API.
- Supported: Beverage Alcohol: Simplified regulatory compliance for suppliers, distributors, and retailers in the beverage alcohol industry.
Avalara Screenshots
Avalara Video
Avalara Integrations
Avalara Competitors
Avalara Technical Details
Deployment Types | Software as a Service (SaaS), Cloud, or Web-Based |
---|---|
Operating Systems | Unspecified |
Mobile Application | No |
Avalara Downloadables
Frequently Asked Questions
Comparisons
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Reviews and Ratings
(720)Attribute Ratings
- 9.2Likelihood to Renew26 ratings
- 8Availability8 ratings
- 8Performance8 ratings
- 8Usability405 ratings
- 5.7Support Rating18 ratings
- 7.3Online Training3 ratings
- 8In-Person Training2 ratings
- 6.4Implementation Rating197 ratings
- 5Configurability5 ratings
- 8Product Scalability7 ratings
- 5.1Ease of integration11 ratings
- 7.9Vendor pre-sale8 ratings
- 1.1Vendor post-sale8 ratings
Reviews
(126-150 of 413)Implementation Specialists ROCK!
- Ease of set up and use
- Registering in multiple states
- Customer service and implementation specialists are AMAZING!
- Links to Shopify Plus
- The reports are easily accessible and easy to understand.
- My account manager is always willing to help.
- Avalara is always willing to back up their reports.
- One on one contact. That was particularly difficult when setting everything up at first.
- Customer service - when I have called for help they don't walk you through a process instead they refer you to a report.
Avalara Excise
- Quick response to trouble tickets
- User guide is helpful for some situations that don't require heavy lifting
- Online videos (youtube) are very helpful
- Friendly attitude from case ticket support staff
- User guide could include real world examples (with screen shots) of issues and how to fix
- New and updated youtube videos would be great on issues industry has run into
- Avalara puts a lot of resources towards Sales Tax, and feels like they ignore Excise tax at times (the CRUSH conference was very heavy on Sales tax info and very little on Excise).
- Our system meshes with their AVI seamlessly.
- Using Avatax, we can give our customers a total order quote when they place an order.
- Avalara's webinars have been especially helpful.
- 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.
- Calculate sales tax
- Create gross sales reports
- Create sales tax collected reports
- Canadian tax calculation
- Canadian gross sales reports
- Canadian tax collected reports
Avalara is hands-down the best tax provider in the industry - 100% relationship focused
- Develops relationships early on
- Communicates and manages expectations with clients and MultiSoft
- Exceeds Expectations
- Simplifies the processes of sales tax, which can often be confusing, especially for start-ups
- None that we can think of at this time, they are phenomenal
Avalara - Can't do sales tax without it
- Files returns accurately.
- Calculates tax accurately.
- Stays on top of all changes in sales tax rates.
- Responds quickly to support cases.
- Highlights new areas where we may be subject to tax.
- AvaTax integrations with outside software could be improved. Mainly insight into how the integration is built and how Avalara's team communicates with Partners.
I would use Avalara for any of my clients, but it may be less applicable if you are an annual filer in one state for very few transactions.
Well done Avalara
- State returns
- Calculating tax
- Tracking all our transactions
- Calculating for shipping to address changes
- Updating sales tax if there is a change to the reciept.
- Amount of time it takes for the tax returns to update for any corrected transactions
Avalara Review
- Updating sales tax rates.
- Generating sales tax returns.
- Reporting
The ease of approving the tax returns is wonderful.
I would just like to have one screen where all the monthly reports load and I download the reports from that screen.
Good Product, room for improvement in both Pricing/Support
- Automated & up-to-date sales tax calculation
- Able to integrate via API through our own services & integrates with NetSuite ERP
- Eases the process of filing returns
- Expensive - pricing outgrows your own business growth
- Pricing model is highly convoluted
- Often unhelpful generic support - not able to help with integration challenges
- Unexplained service outages or hiccups
Avalara Review
- Calculate sales tax.
- Store exemptions.
- File our tax returns on time.
- Send a lot of emails.
- Returning calls.
- Providing customer support.
- Provide more webinars.
Positive review.
- Returns and related reporting.
- Calculation of appropriate tax rate on each transaction.
- Quick response time on support questions.
- Ability to file Guam returns.
- Give a bit more guidance on local registrations.
- Support providing more specific responses as opposed to pointing us in the direction of reading about a topic in general.
Feeling taxed no more
- Transaction reviews.
- Accurate returns.
- Timely returns.
- Support - can’t talk to anyone who isn’t overseas. Terrible connection.
- Support - when instruction sheets are emailed, they rarely match with what’s seen on the screen.
Great Product, room to grow!
- Easy to file returns.
- Great customer service from account managers.
- Good tax information on each state.
- Assistance with audit between returns and what is owed.
- SaaS product information on Exemptions build within the platform.
- Update on your how to do steps for users. Many are out of date, when attempting to use.
Avalara review: good, working on great
- Timely filing
- Transaction reports
- State reports
- State Jurisdiction Knowledge
- City Jurisdiction Knowledge
- Timely notice responses
Accuracy and efficiency at its finest
- Up-to-date tax rates down to the local/jurisdiction level.
- User interface is easy to use.
- Provides notifications for states you may have Nexus in.
- Ability to export data.
- Assigning tax classification codes for items/services can be difficult as you may not find details that match the items/services you sell.
- Depending on your ERP system, you may have to use a third party to connect data to Avatax. The third party results in additional fees and attempts to make fees recurring.
- Not a con for Avalara, but, ensure your company has their databases set up properly or you will not be able to fully utilize all the perks and efficiency Avalara has to offer.
AvaTax and CertCapture: Thumbs Up. Processing Returns: Thumbs Down
- Tax calculations
- CertCapture features
- Training opportunities
- Customer service overall.
- Customer service response.
- Accurate filings on behalf of the customer.
Large sales tax exempt customer base
- CertCapture
- Returns
- Transaction lookup
- Could use more instruction on bringing on non-SST states.
- More instructional material on reports like what is available and how to access.
- More instruction on using templates to enter transactions.
User Friendly
- Calculates tax for our ERP system
- Manages our exemption certificates
- The interface of the Cert Capture site could be more streamlined.
Thanks Avalara!!
- Contain sales certificates
- Specify what's needed per customer
- Notify me when we hit our sales threshold
- Notify me of exemptions - errors - in customer entries
- It would be nice to have support be more specific on answers as it's vague and unclear sometimes
- Exemptions could be a bit more clear
- Cost is high also
Trusted service
- Calculate sales tax
- Filling and pay the returns
- Constantly support and integrate with the ERP system
- Training and research
- On time reports and alerts
- Budget friendly
- More options to reduce costs.
Could not be very appropriate if your business is focused on a very specific location and your taxes are not very complex.
Avalara for Medical goods vendors
- Implementation - we sell a wide range of products, so getting items set up was a big deal.
- Supports our ERP system.
- Allows us to to track entities and certificates with CertCapture.
- Without Avalara, our accounting department would have to be bigger.
- While tax calculation is a must, their is a time cost when we must query Avalara's system for the tax information. During parts of the day, especially EOD can be slow, relatively.
- Their growth sometimes has exceeded their systems for a period. They do scale quickly.
Highly recommend Avalara!
- Timely Returns
- Communications
- Solving support issues quickly.
- Communication from our account manager on new products.
Quick, Easy, and Reliable
- Tax filing
- Updates on tax changes
- Support
- Support
- Support
Avalara review from AR viewpoint
- Communication with ERP system (SAP B1)
- Accuracy of returns
- Need measures in place to prevent duplication of certs (especially at the beginning data dump)
- Need better "clean up" options, such as being able to delete or stop multiple certs within a customer.