Item: Avalara
Rating: 8
Author: Verified User

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Avalara is used within our tax accounting department for indirect tax, allowing us to maintain an exemption certificate database and bring data from multiple ERPs across our entities into one cohesive tax engine for filing.

Pros and Cons

Tax calculation and addressing.
Exemption certificate maintenance and tracking expirations.

Not always intuitive for salespeople, who may enter transactions incorrectly.
HI wholesale to wholesale vs. wholesale to retail still a work in progress.

Return on Investment

Time merging data streams reduced significantly.
Helps expedite M&A's drastically.

Implementation Rating

I was not present for initial implementation, but I heard great things about our account manager and our IT representative who have been nothing but helpful.

Systems Integrated With

Oracle (11i)
Microsoft Dynamics AX (in progress)
Frontier (in progress)

Relatively surface-level integrations. A decent amount of manual work was done first to allow several data streams to be in a uniform format before import. We worked with third-party to assist integration, so it was not too difficult.

Usability

The site is quite intuitive; merging with all of our ERPs and data streams is occasionally a bit of trial-and-error.

Additional Capabilities

We utilize exemption certificate management to create a central database for our exemptions, which has proven extremely helpful in managing our taxability profile.

Likelihood to Recommend

Avalara is good for companies of many sizes and is able to help merge several data streams to bring into full compliance. The CertCapture feature is quite sophisticated and a valuable tool for our company. The servers often take a good amount of time (couple to several hours) for imported data to be reflected fully in all reports, causing some lag and downtime when trying to ensure all data is accurate.

Approachable, Adaptable Avalara

Modules Used

Overall Satisfaction with Avalara