Avalara

Our company has used other software similar to Avalara, and we do like it much more in comparison. The helpdesk is helpful and the program is easy to use for simple tax purposes. Most small online stores do not have a need for a full-time tax professional, so Avalara definitely fulfills a need, and most tasks are simple and require little more than a few clicks of a button. There is some room for improvement, such as having necessary codes readily available and not changing functionality to a different/higher subscription level. All in all, it is a great program if your company just needs basic tax information day-to-day.

Avalara is well suited for companies selling into multiple states or tax jurisdictions or companies with high sales volume. The amount of time it will save on tax calculation alone makes it worth the cost. The only instance in which Avalara may not be necessary or the cost may not be justifiable is if you're a small company that only sells locally or just one tax jurisdiction. Then I could see handling the tax calculations and reporting on your own and saving the money on the Avalara subscription.

Avalara is well suited for companies that have sales activity, and nexus, in multiple states. It is especially helpful if there is a larger amount of customers that are exempt from sales tax, or selling products with different or special tax rates. If expanding the business into new states, Avalara is great to track the activity in the new states to monitor how close you are to triggering nexus. Avalara may be less appropriate if business activities are limited to a few states with minimal customers that are exempt from sales tax and more standard sales tax rates.

Avalara is a great tool to help take out the guess work of taxes.

A multistate operation needs a resource like Avalara for accurate sales tax calculations and reliable sales tax filings.

When your company is behind on taxing customers in a state Avalara is a huge help on getting the VDA process taken through step by step.

I would like to see more category codes related to the service industry, specifically in the administrative area.

Avalara automatically adds correct sales tax at invoicing which is very good but researching tax implications on customized base are not provided.

Avalara helps the sales tax process, at large, on a day to day basis but can have its quirks or issues when dealing with non-standard issues.

I truly view Avalara as a tax leader, especially for cloud based SaaS companies like mine. While it was difficult to at first set up, their support team did an amazing job getting us up and running. With immersion, he product gets easier to use. They offer great webinars too, which provide great insights on how to maximize their products, as well as knowledge on new tax regulations. For being all about tax, their webinars are never boring, which is kinda nice.

Overall, Avalara is working well for us; however, when we have an issue or question, we are basically on our own to figure it out.

eCommerce giftware retailer (Shopify) in multiple states works seamlessly with tax calculations and files/remits multiple states. Great visibility into states nearing economic nexus.

Another case needed extensive use of Avalara Tax Codes. The Tax Matrix builder is a phenomenal tool for this research.

Marketplace configuration seamlessly handled an Amazon MFN client need.

Their licensing product is very well suited to any company that high volumes of nexus in the US (brick and mortar locations, equipment leasing etc.)

This is a great place to start for sales tax compliance. This can plug-in to a ton of interfaces, revenue systems. The pricing is much more affordable than other larger-scale solutions.

For small companies, Avalara is a good choice, as it is one that offers a benefit that includes free transactions and returns filing for SST states. This helps keep the cost at a lower tier. It can still be costly for small companies, so things like storing the PDFs for exemptions [have] not been appropriate for us.

I haven't been in any situations where it is less appropriate but Avalara is well suited for all types of sales tax tracking, reporting, and calculating.

It is amazing for Domestic US taxes, however, not being able to convert to CAD is a huge headache when it requires downloading data to do manual conversions for CAD filing.

Calculating taxes for sales made specifically in complicated jurisdictions. CertCapture is also a nice feature if you're willing to pay the upcharge. We were audited by our state and Avalara was not really much help with the resale certificates, but the reports did come in very handy and very accurate.

Avalara has done a great job of helping us understand how AvaTax works and integrates with our new software

Avalara is very much needed in a high transaction count company. The Avalara system speaks with our Point of Sale system and quickly calculates the required sales tax to collect based on the purchaser's location/shipping address. The fact that they stay up to date on the ever-changing sales tax percentages, is massive. If you are in a majority of the states that require you to collect sales tax once you have economic nexus, then Avalara is a must-have.

In my previous job, we used Avalara for sales tax, and we struggled a little because of the type of customers we had. We manufactured large culverts, bridges, and other items that were used in construction, but were typically not delivered to addresses. This caused some issues when trying to track down the right taxing jurisdiction. If your company though, is a more typical business-to-business company, Avalara is definitely the right choice. The sheer number of taxing codes that they have the research behind is amazing and would definitely help you to ensure that you are in compliance. I would also recommend them if you are typically seeing high-dollar audits. Despite some of the issues with calculating with no address, at my prior company we went from regularly seeing 5-6 figure sales tax audits to zero dollar sales tax audits. Having them to help with the decisions and ensuring the rates were up to date really saved us money.

Avalara is the well-known company now for its tax calculation and appears to have the BEST PRODUCTs in the market. Overall, I am happy using the product, but need to figure out how I can upgrade my product and services.

Avalara is great once it's set up and functioning. It's very helpful in tracking sales and tax, as well as nexus status. Getting set up was a huge task that could have been guided a little better to make the process less frustrating.

I haven't used other sales tax service providers, so I can't compare it to others. However, I have found it to be extremely necessary as we grow and expand into other states so that we aren't spending all our time figuring out the complex tax laws, jurisdictions, rates, etc. for our customer sales. It gives us peace of mind that the correct taxes are being filed and we are compliant. There are definitely areas for improvement, but it's a great service.