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If your e-commerce is growing, it helps to know what your owing! Avalara does it all.
Updated October 19, 2022

If your e-commerce is growing, it helps to know what your owing! Avalara does it all.

Jere Allen | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Modules Used

  • AvaTax
  • Returns
  • CertCapture

Overall Satisfaction with Avalara

We utilize Avalara as a key tool within our online e-commerce platform. As a national distributor of lab products and supplies, we have met the economic Nexus thresholds in a majority of states. AvaTax is a vital part of our assessment and remittance process, starting with the shopping experience of our customer, all the way to managing sales tax exemptions, closing out invoices and filing returns.
  • Assesses up-to-date sales tax at the local jurisdiction.
  • Manages sales tax exemptions through the CertCapture Module
  • Provides ongoing information of changing regulations in individual states.
  • Allows for easy reconciliation of transactions.
  • Provides easy registration for SST states.
  • Reconciling errors in transactions of SST states is often difficult.
  • Sometimes support can be a bit slow or not provide as good of information as might be needed.
  • Scaling up services and what the cost is to do so at renewal can be confusing/fuzzy.

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

  • We went from assessing and filing in 3 states to over 20 and did not need to hire additional staff.
  • We significantly reduced the amount of work needed by our accounting firm to file monthly returns.
  • Human error has been reduced to less than 5%.
  • Much of the process is automated so it eliminates hours and hours of manual processes and entries.
  • We have integrated Avalara and CertCapture with our ERP.
  • We have integrated Avalara with our online e-commerce store.
  • We are currently integrating CertCapture with our online shopping cart.
Each integration that we did had it's own challenges, but I would not say any of them presented difficulties that seemed impossible to overcome. They each took a reasonable amount of thought and effort and required people with the right skill set but we always had proper support to get over the finish line.
Once integrated and properly set up, the software does most of the work for you. There are occasional hiccups, but that is true of all software. A lot of the ease depends on to what extent you let the platform do for you versus what you take on. For us, it decides which transaction to tax, assesses the tax rate based on the specific jurisdiction (and any changes in the tax rate), stores the exemption certificates and files the returns. Mostly what we are responsible for is reconciling the ledgers to the tax liability worksheets. It turns a complex and long set of tasks into a fairly simple and quick process.
  • Avalara Returns
  • CertCapture
We take advantage of letting Avalara file the returns and we use CertCapture to store certificates and provide the accurate exemption to our transactions. Avalara does all of our SST registrations while we do most of the non-SST registrations. All of this helps to ensure we are doing these tasks correctly and it reduces our work load.
We've looked at some other products but have been satisfied enough with Avalara that we've never had an interest in moving to another platform. It integrates well with our systems and does a great job for us. We have had some relationship management turnover and unmet expectations along with that experience, but generally have been able to resolve the issues.
If you are growing online sales and meeting economic thresholds, it is a must; especially if you do not have the time or expertise to do it in-house or your CPA does not specialize in sales tax. If you need a tool that can integrate well with your ERP system, this may likely be right for you. If you meet economic thresholds but have a very limited number of transactions and sell into a limited number of taxing jurisdictions, and you have the staff to handle the process, it might not be appropriate.

Avalara Feature Ratings

Type of tax
9.5
Sales and Use Taxes
10
Cross-border Taxes
9
VAT / GST Taxes
Not Rated
Energy and Fuel Taxes
Not Rated
Tax Reporting & Compliance
9.0
Geolocation for Tax Assessment
9
3rd-Party Software Integrations
8
Tax Data Reporting
9
Compliance Administration Management
9
Tax Exemption Processing
9
Tax Document Management
10
Complex Tax Scenario Management
Not Rated

Cross-Border Tax Compliance with Avalara

Avalara lets us know when we are getting close to having economic nexus in a state. The product keeps up with thresholds and all the changes in tax rates of individual jurisdictions, so we don't have to.
N/A
I'm not sure
N/A