I use Avalara and I'm not sure why everyone doesn't!
Updated June 27, 2023

I use Avalara and I'm not sure why everyone doesn't!

Marc Petrine | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Modules Used

  • AvaTax
  • Returns
  • CertCapture

Overall Satisfaction with Avalara

We use Avalara across our sales and accounting departments. Avalara integrates with our e-commerce platform to calculate, charge, and collect sales tax. It's helpful that Avalara knows the correct rates to charge for all products in all jurisdictions for all classes of customers. That information is then transmitted to our accounting staff to reconcile with our internal records. Avalara then files the necessary tax returns.

Pros

  • Determines tax rates for customers depending on that customer's exact ship-to location.
  • Files returns correctly and on time.
  • Tracks and uses customer supplied exemption certificates to determine a customer's taxability.

Cons

  • Avalara assumes that companies have IT support. Dumbing down some of their training would be helpful.
  • Avalara leads you to believe that they do everything. There is a significant amount of internal time spent setting up and making necessary adjustments to Avalara.

Do you think Avalara delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Avalara's feature set?

Yes

Did Avalara live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of Avalara go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Avalara again?

Yes

  • It has been very positive in that it has allowed us to be compliant in cases where we may not have otherwise had the resources.
  • The negative impact has been that some customers will shop elsewhere if other vendors do not charge tax.
  • The value of Avalara is immediate, as we don't have to hire people to do taxes.
  • Big Commerce
  • Thatcher
  • Shopify
Integrations with big fit-in-the-box applications like Big Commerce is a breeze! Thatcher is very customized but fortunately the team over there is very familiar with Avalara and making it work. It is funny that there are certain tweaks that can be made such as calculating tax at the item level or the cart level, which can greatly affect the cost of the service. There are some products out there like Paywhirl which offer no integration at all.

We switched to Shopify and the big win there is that Avalara calculations are included with Shopify.
Once the data is contained inside of Avalara, the system is very user-friendly when it comes to looking at and using the data. They strongly recommend a review of all the data monthly. This is rather time consuming and hard to do, but it is important. Errors that make it through the system are very difficult and expensive to correct.
  • Avalara Returns
  • CertCapture
We have used both Returns and CertCapture. The CertCapture, now ECM seems to work perfectly. However; this, like all of Avalara's features, was much harder to implement than expected. I would strongly suggest an implementation and training budget to supplement whatever funds have been allocated for operations. Perhaps they could just offer two levels of service.
Avalara was in place when I came on board, and the experience has been so positive that as we have encountered other needs, we have gone directly to Avalara.
Avalara is well-suited to a company that has accounting software that has the ability to integrate through API. It becomes more manual when you have a situation where third-party software does not integrate well. The more time that you can spend in the setup phase, the better your experience will be.

Avalara Feature Ratings

Type of tax
5.5
Sales and Use Taxes
10
Cross-border Taxes
Not Rated
VAT / GST Taxes
1
Energy and Fuel Taxes
Not Rated
Tax Reporting & Compliance
7.3
Geolocation for Tax Assessment
8
3rd-Party Software Integrations
6
Tax Data Reporting
10
Compliance Administration Management
Not Rated
Tax Exemption Processing
9
Tax Document Management
10
Complex Tax Scenario Management
1

Avalara Implementation

  • Implemented in-house
You need to be honest with yourself on your abilities to implement the products. It turned out that we required far more support than we originally thought.

Integrating Avalara

  • Big Commerce
  • Prowess
  • Paywhirl
The integration was quite simple with well-known software products. Paywhirl, in particular, does not integrate.

Comments

  • Bobby Sands | TrustRadius Reviewer
    Bobby Sands
    (Vendor Representative) commented 6 years ago
    Marc, thank you for sharing about your experience with Avalara, we're happy to hear it's been positive. We are committed to offering a reliable and easy-to-use solution, and we look forward to continuing to serve you. If you have any additional comments you’d like to share, please contact customercare@avalara.com.

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