The good, the bad and . . .
Updated September 29, 2023

The good, the bad and . . .

Kathleen Gage | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Modules Used

  • AvaTax
  • CertCapture

Overall Satisfaction with Avalara

Currently, I am the primary user, with my manager as back-up. I do have plans to roll out the application to billing personnel in my company and to sales for tax calculation.
  • Calculate real-time sales tax for invoices.
  • CertCapture for managing my TEC's.
  • Transaction sales tax detail.
  • Local jurisdiction exemption certificates.
  • Avalara online university classes are not interactive and do not provide for practice applications.
  • I feel that I spend the same amount of time & energy on sales tax, but now my time is more on reconciling than getting data for returns filing.
  • I do believe that with time and learning this will improve, and also when we move forward with returns filing.
  • Microsoft Dynamics SL 2018
Not too difficult, Field Service module had to have custom integration built and there were several bugs to work out once we went live.
The application (Avalara Identity) is very user-friendly, in my opinion.
  • Avalara Returns
  • CertCapture
Yes, helped me reduce my returns filing calculation time and improved accuracy of returns and payments. CertCapture has eased the availability of requesting certificates and finding expired certificates.
RSM already had a connector and CCH did not; we were also using RSM for SL2018 implementation.
Avalara does a great job with usual sales tax calculations, but it needs a bit of improvement in trickier or unusual sales tax calculations/exemptions.

Avalara Feature Ratings

Sales and Use Taxes
9
Geolocation for Tax Assessment
8
3rd-Party Software Integrations
8
Tax Data Reporting
8
Compliance Administration Management
9
Tax Exemption Processing
8
Tax Document Management
9
Complex Tax Scenario Management
5

Cross-Border Tax Compliance with Avalara

Nexus alerts and standard reports available to show sales & tax by state.

Using Avalara

2 - Accounting
  • more accurate sales tax calculations
  • faster returns calculations & filing
  • nexus research
  • taxable/non-taxable sales by state
  • sales tax registrations
we are not going backwards to a more manual system

Evaluating Avalara and Competitors

  • Price
  • Product Usability
  • Prior Experience with the Product
  • Third-party Reviews
We were already using Avalara rate tables import and RSM as our SL upgrade 3rd party implementation vendor.
Not sure I would change it.

Avalara Implementation

  • Third-party professional services
RSM & Plumline
  • bugs had to worked out once we were live that didn't come up in test
  • sales tax calculations were not showing up on our invoices there were completed
Our company management did not allow enough time for implementation. I was also very disappointed that the implementation team were not available on day one of go-live; we had a lot of issues the first week of go-live, and that more direct support should have been available. Waiting over an hour on the phone to get problems addressed only to be told the issue would have to be escalated to another team was extremely frustrating.

Avalara Training

The videos go too fast; I kept having to pause them and go back. They don't allow for any practice transactions or provide training materials.

Configuring Avalara

We had to have a custom integration built for Field service module which when we went live still had quite a few bugs to work out.
Yes, make sure to completely understand Avalara and your company. We were told we had to do a complete import of our customers by our Avalara implementation coordinator with their shipping addresses but after we went live I found our we should have only imported our customers and not the shipping addresses. I could not get the shipping addresses deleted in bulk. I was told we would have to re-do the whole import and lose some of our data for sales tax transactions and/or re-import the transactions. I can only delete shipping information on a customer by customer basis which is a pain.
Some - we have added small pieces of custom code - Yes it was relatively easy with supports assistance once we talked to the right person. We have some customization for a few local taxes.

Avalara Support

They were not so good in the beginning but since the implementation of submitting cases online their support has improved. I do find some support techs are very knowledgeable but while some are not. Also sometime it can be very difficult to understand a support tech as their English language skills may not be very proficient.
ProsCons
Quick Resolution
Good followup
Problems get solved
Kept well informed
Support understands my problem
Support cares about my success
Quick Initial Response
None
No - Not cost effective for us and the support we need.
No, not really. I had some difficulty with Avalara in the beginning and support was difficult to obtain. I had to go above my customer service representative be get the immediate support we needed. I did attend the Avalara Crush a while after going live and I believe it was extremely important in my knowledge of Avalara. They was a lot of information I learned that I wish had been provided to me when we first implemented as what reports to use to reconcile and how to correct Avatax transactions to reconcile to my general ledger. I also think Avalara online training could be improved. The videos go too fast and don't allow for practice transactions and training materials.

Using Avalara

ProsCons
Like to use
Relatively simple
Easy to use
Well integrated
Consistent
Quick to learn
Convenient
Feel confident using
None
  • adding transactions
  • running reports
  • deleting information in bulk
  • importing transactions, template is not user friendly

Integrating Avalara

Mostly a smooth integration but we had to have customization for our service department and Avalara doesn't support Project construction billing entry which we do use sometimes.
  • Mircrosoft Dynamics SL 2018
yes
  • File import/export
not sure, we are now on direct/live integration with Avalara in real time
Have good communication within your organization and between integration team, your company and Avalara. Get in writing exact details of who will do what and when exactly.
  • Solomon 2018
  • Field Service module
We had to have an RSM custom builder connector for the Field Service module; it was not part of the standard SL2018 connector.

Relationship with Avalara

In hindsight I feel they gave us a "canned" presentation on Avalara that was not customized to our company. They were a lot of things behind the scene that I only found out during the implementation process.
Once we went live and were experiencing problems we had to escalate the issue to get things resolved quickly. We were only told after the fact that our implementation support stopped the minute we went live and we had to go through regular customer support which at the time was calling in and waiting on hold forever. One exact issue took support over an hour on hold before someone answered and we did not have the option to leave a number for support to call us back. That situation has improved and now if the wait in more than a few minutes you can press 9 and leave a number for a call back.
We did not negotiate with Avalara. We were told the price for the product. We did negotiate with RSM/Plumline for the Field Service custom Avalara portion.
Yes, deal not only with your customer service representative but also their manager and make sure to get all the specific details regarding support before you go live. Ensure you have adequate date and time allotment for testing. Go live near the Avalara Crush and attend the classes on returns, reporting and reconciliations.

Upgrading Avalara

Yes - We were using the Avalara rate tables prior; now we are fully integrated with Avalara.
  • Streamlined sales tax process
  • Improved accuracy of sales tax calculations & returns
  • easy way to import transactions

Avalara Reliability

Not sure what you mean by this question
Avalara usually connects without issue. There have been a few occasions when we couldn't connect to Avalara but not sure if the problem hs been with Avalara or our system.
For the most part don't have a problem with Avalara performance. On the few occasions I've had a issue isn't has been resolved quickly and usually without having to contact support.