Tax compliance made easy
Updated July 12, 2022

Tax compliance made easy

Rebecca Fortman, MBA | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Modules Used

  • AvaTax
  • Returns

Overall Satisfaction with Avalara

TydenBrooks utilizes Avalara for our tax calculations and tax return preparations. Avalara is linked directly with our Epicor ERP software. AP and AR both utilize the software for managing the taxation of goods sold and paying tax collected into states. Our company has Nexus in all states currently collecting tax from to marketplace, online sales, traveling salesmen, etc. Avalara makes tax apportionment, billing, and filing efficient and streamlined across our company.
  • Tax calculation
  • Tax filing
  • Historical data retention
  • Tax consult and tax support
  • Conversion to CAD
  • Selecting all states as one option vs. having to list state after state individually for setups, such as for our marketplace
  • Filing refund requests vs. carrying credits
  • ROI is around 5K per month in tax filings.
  • Reduction of time spent by 50%.
  • Ability to bring tax back in house (for reconciliation and approval).
  • Epicor 9
It was not difficult at all, we were able to have our internal Epicor Specialist create the link, so that Epicor goes out to Avalara captures the rates/calcs and sends it back to Epicor
It is very explanatory if you have even a small amount of tax understanding and computer comprehension. I feel that each step is easy to understand and follow.
  • Avalara Returns
  • Professional Services (nexus studies, registrations, backfiling, etc.)
Avalara files all of our state tax returns, this process is simple and CORRECT! We love Avalara Returns since the beginning and are thrilled we made the change.
We also had Avalara do a nexus study for us, and help us file VDA's on a couple states in addition to helping us register in all the rest of the states we had Nexus in.
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.

Avalara Feature Ratings

Sales and Use Taxes
10
VAT / GST Taxes
10
Geolocation for Tax Assessment
10
3rd-Party Software Integrations
10
Tax Data Reporting
10
Compliance Administration Management
10
Tax Exemption Processing
10
Tax Document Management
10
Complex Tax Scenario Management
9

Cross-Border Tax Compliance with Avalara

As our company has Nexus in all states, Avalara has helped us to quickly and efficiently collect and remit the appropriate tax in all states. If we had to do any returns manually it would take more than 1 individual calculating and processing these as a full time job. Avalara keeps our company tax compliant and helps us to ace audits with very little hardship.
Avalara's products have not helped us to expand into new lines of business.
We already sell internationally - We use Avalara to help us calculate our Canadian sales tax, but as of yet Avalara does not support Canadian returns so we still process those manually. Avalara cuts our workload down, but it is still a manual process.
We do sell on marketplace. Amazon has it's own tax codes that tie with Avalara so there are no special tasks we have to do selling via Amazon and calculating or remitting sales tax on those items.

Using Avalara

3 - Accounts payable, Invoicing, Accounting Management
1 - Epicor Program Specialist
  • Tax Calculation
  • Tax Reporting
  • VDA programs
  • Tax Registration
Avalara has been great streamlining the tax side of our business and ensuring we meet tax compliance

Evaluating Avalara and Competitors

  • Price
  • Product Features
  • Product Usability
Avalara gave us all the tax features we needed for less than other 3rd party vendors.

Avalara Implementation

Change management was minimal
We implemented back in 2014 and I wish the team that had set us up had spent more time showing us why certain values were selected and how to set up or change items on our own. There have been several areas since implementing the actual tax filing module last year that we have needed to go back to the support team to change things that we should have known (had they spent more time with us at the beginning of initial Avalara set up).

Using Avalara

ProsCons
Like to use
Relatively simple
Easy to use
Technical support not required
Well integrated
Consistent
Quick to learn
Convenient
Feel confident using
None
  • tax calculations
  • tax reporting

Integrating Avalara

  • File import/export
Avalara has been extremely easy to work with. Their integration team when was amazingly helpful when we first rolled out avalara into our Epicor ERP system. There were minor issues and quickly resolved. Avalara is one of the few FULL support systems on the market, meaning we didn't have to rely on our internal Epicor systems analyst to fumble along figuring things out on his own.
  • Epicor ERP
  • Agile Freight
We are fully integrated with Epicor, sending purchase data into Avalara and having Epicor pull back tax based upon Avalara's calculations. It makes invoicing and compliance so much easier and reliable.