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!
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
Compare with
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
(226-250 of 413)Mediocre at best
We currently utilize AvaTax and CertCapture. We are still doing our own returns.
- The system works okay. It helps us manage rate tables and customers with multiple jurisdictions.
- TERRIBLE and SLOW customer service. In fact, the worst I've ever experienced. It takes over a week to get a response unless you call-in, wait over an hour and get lucky with a knowledgeable rep. They love to pass the buck and point you to Avarala Help articles that are unrelated or not particularly useful.
- Implementation - We went with their "guided implementation" to cut costs as we have a strong IT team and a lot of great internal and experienced resources. They were not helpful at all. No engagement (we had to reach out to them multiple times to get things moving), no project plan, limited guidance, slow responses and flat-out wrong recommendations. They gave us incorrect configuration information, and their data upload is downright antiquated. We had to CSV upload our customers (oh yeah, they don't know how to bulk upload data). We figured out a way to do it, but they also don't tell you any null values will delete those fields of data, so you get to do it all over again.
- We then had to manually associate every single certificate for existing customers. We had to go through 3 reps and implementation types to properly handle marketplace facilitators (hint: setup an exempt customers in CertCapture like Amazon FBA/FBM, flow marketplace transactions through those customers, then create tax exemptions for each state that marketplace collects/remits on your behalf). We went live with lots of issues, and we're still working through several of them months later.
- Their NetSuite integration is okay - but weak at best. Not intuitive at all. Permissions are a headache and we had to open a ticket to request they actually connect CertCapture correctly. All state liabilities also post to a single tax GL. If you want to report by state this is a challenge to reclass and reconcile.
- Their reporting is mediocre at best . The reports they provide don't actually provide enough data to file your reports, likely because they want you to utilize their services and pay the $50/per filing for them to file on your behalf. If you have budget and you're not a small business, this would probably be fine.
- UI - their User Interface is really pretty antiquated and frustrating to work with. Instead of having a single place to login and manage your account, there's an AvaTax login, there's an Avalara Admin login, there's a CertCapture login, and you have to handle them all separately. Many aspects just aren't super intuitive, and their Help isn't all that helpful. For instance, you can create a template cover letter to email to customers for exemption certificate requests, but you can't set it as a default form - unless you delete their default form and rename it (it took them 2 weeks to figure that one out).
Avalara - Automating sales tax and use tax
- The tax has automatically calculated the instance that invoice is generated.
- The sales tax rates are maintained on Avalara's side. Whenever there's a sales tax rate change for any jurisdiction, Avalara will update the rate.
- The User Interface is very user-friendly. Reports can be constructed and filtered in many ways (by state, by types of documents, etc.)
- Avalara doesn't have the ability to tax multiple jurisdictions if you have one invoice line item but have a quantity of more than 1. This is relevant for when you have 100 software licenses and these licenses are used throughout multiple jurisdictions.
- Avalara needs to find a solution to handle and remit use tax that is not manual-intensive work.
- It sometimes takes a while to connect to chat support when you try to get support during peak hours.
- Calculate state and local taxes.
- House exempt certificates.
- File and pay tax returns to states.
- Easier reporting website.
- Customer service and friendly staff
- Account management
- Easy API implementation
- Integration of existing systems to form one single sign on system
Avalara is the best tax compliance of all.
- Helps with returns
- Files our returns
- Helpful Customer Account Managers
- Customer Support has been lacking.
- Response time to cases lately has been too long.
- Retaining and communicating when account managers are reassigned.
Easy Integration and Easy Sales Tax Automation
- Great at address level tax calculations.
- Simple and easy to use interface.
- Easy connection to ERPs.
- The options of “sellers use or sales tax” and “sales tax only” when selecting nexus states on AvaTax. I believe the process of selecting what tax type a client has needs to be more fleshed out. The consequences of selecting incorrectly could be major. Examples or a more detailed description of what selecting one or the other means for each state would be really helpful. I selected the “sellers use or sales tax” option for Iowa on a client’s set up and it missed an additional 1% local tax on a transaction as a result, which ended up not collecting an additional $3K in sales tax on an invoice. Each state defines one or the other differently, and it is important to know which option does what. It’s not as easy as knowing what type of tax the client has in the state in situations when that may not be apparent (such as new registrations when the tax type is not defined yet, but as a consultant, you know how the tax will be collected).
- Documentation for clients such as a users guide, implementation manual for a company’s ERP that details what has changed on a client’s interface system, process diagrams on how everything connects, etc. Some of this is found on the online help, but some clients want actual documentation.
- Support and guidance on CertCapture.
- Support and guidance on proxy installations. A client was given a proxy installed on their NetSuite that allowed customer information to be passed to CertCapture. It was installed and no guidance was given on how to use it, even after requesting.
- Better support for clients with special requests. We requested phone time with NetSuite specialist from Avalara and AvaTax specialist in order to discuss some open questions the client had.
- Tax calculations with the Avalara AvaTax API system returns pretty accurate taxation results.
- AvaTax website is easy to navigate.
- Avalara's blog provides valuable tax information regarding rate changes and tax holidays or changing tax rules.
- When paired with our POS system, which does not utilize an API but utilizes an Avalara-designed static rate file, tax results are often inaccurate, resulting at times in significant tax undercollection.
- Reports are hard to use when the same data is on multiple lines for multiple jurisdictions.
- Website often is slow in looking up transaction details.
- Customer support on the product/technical side leaves much to be desired. Poor communication, unresolved issues but tickets are closed anyway, and often, unhelpful "contact your rep" or "we don't support that" types of answers.
Avalara Review from an Accountant
- Timely remittance
- Rate changes
- Multiple state jurisdictions
- Customer service. Very good compliance team though
- Dealing with tax notices
- Manual entries are difficult
- Accurate calc of taxes. The tax rate is determined by a combination of the tax code of the item being invoiced, as well as the ship to address.
- Files returns so that I never again have to file a state sales tax return
- File VDAs for me
- Our EPicor ERP system combined with Avalara allows us to easily do Use Tax during the AP Invoice Processing - much easier than the old way of writing on invoices.
- A little slow in VDAs, due to being overwhelmed with volume
- Backdated transactions are not always included in the appropriate return, and it is hard to find them.
- I have had trouble reconciling my monthly transactions since they include monthly/quarterly/annual returns and some have prepayments and carryover credits. Better training and templates on reconciliation would be nice.
Avalara Review
- Online training
- Conferences
- Webinars
- CertCapture
- Billing - we have had issues in past
- Turnover in client reps
- Cost of some products
Great Product
- Tax summary
- Visibility of transactions
- Timely filing
- Research
- Updates to clients
- Multi-entity reporting
Avalara helps, but could use some help
- Keeps tax rates up to date
- Reports are very concise and easy to read
- They keep up well on rate changes
- More person to person support contact rather than "watch this webinar"
- Eliminate the rounding problems
Basic Review
- Run customer and certificate reports
- Store customer and certificate data
- Provide links to helpful info on how to use the system
- The CertExpress customer interface is limited in its capabilities and confusing to customers.
- There is no way to specify if address info is Bill To or Ship to when it is entered into CertCapture.
- The Chat feature in all programs has extremely long wait times and rarely provides answers.
- The Nexus Alert feature in Avatax does not take into account any transactions that are not passed through Avalara.
- Customers are not automatically notified by email when certificates are validated.
- Email campaigns from CertCapture stall in process and have to be resent.
- Avatax provides up to minute tax solutions to charge customers accurately.
- The sales tax can be pinpointed down to exact address.
- Allows us to remain compliant and up to date.
- Recently used registration service and felt we could have been walked through the status of state registration.
- I have not run into any other concerns.
Happy with Avalara.
- Tax calculation.
- Cert validation.
- State registrations.
- Tax return reports could be set up better to aid in return filing. Many of the reports are not set up in a format that is ready to file.
S&U Tax Compliance made easier
- Dynamic acquisition and application of address-based tax rates
- Tax filing per the current tax laws and regulations
- Provide necessary data for monthly reconciliations
- Support center often has long phone queues. It can be frustrating when you need immediate assistance
- System gets bogged down around the time for approvals
Avalara Review
- Customer service has been exceptional, thanks to David West, our rep
- Cert capture is easy to use and saves us time
- None noted
Save me!
- Calculation
- Communication
- Finding help questions. I'm always trying to research and always spend too much time finding the correct topic.
- I have had three account managers in 6 months.
Avalara - easy to use with the results you want!
- Calculate tax
- File returns
- Helps manage our exemption certificates
- Help desk email responses could be addressed timelier.
Avalara - Tax Management for the Modern World
- User friendly
- Modern UI
- Great customer service
- Keeps my team updated on changes in the tax world
- Integration with certain ERP systems
- Meeting the needs of large corporations with Avatax
- A tax calculator / transaction tester would be nice
It’s working as expected
- Calculate tax
- Address validation
- API response time
- Support response time is bad. Does not meet SLA.
- Support response quality is bad. It usually takes a few times to get the answer I want.
- API sometimes goes down.
2019 Crush
- Calculations of tax
- Returns filed timely
- Knowledgeable people
- Grow a customer service team that answers phone calls
- When customer calls and leaves their phone number for a call back...have someone call
- If customer service phone call gets strangely disconnected, call the customer back especially since the Avalara representative asks for a call back # in case of a disconnect.
AvaTax reduced our tax liabilities
- Integration
- End user calculation
- CertCap
- Continued refinement of dashboard and services
Avalara Review
- Filing returns on time
- Calculating sales tax
- Helping when there are issues
- User manuals
- Communications where there are outages or disruptions
Avalara is a great tax solution!
- Rooftop-level tax calculation.
- Partner programs.
- Returns filing.
- Item taxability management.
- Implementation and support could use some updating with their recent expansion.
- Pricing could be better suited for each customer.
- More dedicated partner resources across different departments.