New implementation continues to be a struggle
May 09, 2019

New implementation continues to be a struggle

Sally DeYoung | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 6 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Modules Used

  • AvaTax
  • CertCapture

Overall Satisfaction with Avalara

Avalara is used across our whole organization. It enables us to calculate tax appropriately and capture certificates.

Pros

  • Calculates taxes correctly.
  • Streamlines reporting.
  • Increases visibility.

Cons

  • Training on cert capture, and resources other than just links to webinars.
  • Outages occur too frequently, along with communication errors.
  • It's been a struggle. We engaged managed services and they had a 60% error rate on valid exemption certificates that they said were invalid. We ended up re-validating most of them ourselves.
  • Additional time spent by our staff to validate has been an issue. Customers linked in Cert Capture as "same as" continue to have validation issues.
They need live people to answer questions -- we just keep getting links sent for knowledge-base articles or webinars and no real resource to answer questions. We still have implemented returns processing because we can't get someone to discuss the POA requirements. It has been less than stellar implementation, but since we are on Eclipse for our business application we feel there is no other option.
  • Epicor Eclipse
It is a continual struggle. There's been difficulty finding out if issues are part of Eclipse or part of Avalara. Avalara tends to push every question back to Epicor/Eclipse -- they are helpful to a point, but still push some issues back to Avalara.
For straight-forward transactions and customers, it works well. Any exceptions to special rates, cross-state calculations, or automated freight fees continue to be an issue.
The tax calculation is the best part. CertCapture continues to be a struggle and we have not yet implemented managed returns filing -- even though we signed up for it -- due to ongoing questions with the POA and the inability to get a contact person to discuss this.
National Sales Tax worked well with the Epicor Eclipse application. That is being discontinued though, and Avalara is the new partner for Eclipse. Honestly, we really had no other choice, so other products were not even evaluated.
Well suited when the customer is only in one state.

Avalara Feature Ratings

Type of tax
7.0
Sales and Use Taxes
7
Tax Reporting & Compliance
4.3
Geolocation for Tax Assessment
7
3rd-Party Software Integrations
4
Tax Data Reporting
6
Compliance Administration Management
4
Tax Exemption Processing
3
Tax Document Management
3
Complex Tax Scenario Management
3

Comments

  • Bobby Sands | TrustRadius Reviewer
    Bobby Sands
    (Vendor Representative) commented 6 years ago
    Sally, thank you for taking the time to write about your experience; it’s not the type we aim to deliver. We apologize that the implementation process has been a challenge and we’d like to help. Please contact us at customercare@avalara.com so we can work to address your frustrations.

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