Item: Avalara
Rating: 8
Author: Verified User

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use Avalara to look up sales tax rates for our sales orders. Our main usage is connected to our e-commerce websites to ensure our customers are getting the correct sales tax rates. We also use salestax.avalara to look up rates for our internal orders. Everybody at my company uses Avalara to look up rates.

Pros and Cons

Lots of information
Great reports on Avatax
Up to date information

Updated rates
Easier to trace correct product code
More information about freight codes

Key Insights

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

Return on Investment

Time spent calculating rates
Time spent ensuring accuracy of rates
Time spent updating rates

Systems Integrated With

Woo Commerce

The integration was fairly easy. The hardest part was the tax map of items and ensuring we got the correct code for everything.

Usability

I find it fairly easy to navigate the website, however I know some people that struggle with it. There are times where it is not super intuitive and trying to figure out exactly what to click to make it do what you want is not obvious. Overall it is fairly user friendly though.

Additional Capabilities

Avalara Returns
CertCapture

We do not use the additional capabilities (yet) however we have considered it. We do not integrate everything with Avalara, so trying to have them do the returns for us would be very cumbersome. Maybe someday we will get there.

Alternatives Considered

TaxJar and TaxCloud

Avalara is a lot easier and more accurate compared to our previous sales tax plugins. The reporting and everything are much easier access and understand. Our website moves much more efficiently with Avalara than it ever did with TaxJar or TaxCloud. And we are able to use it on both of our websites.

Likelihood to Recommend

Avalara is an awesome tool for integrating with your website to get accurate tax rates on orders. It has typically up to date information to make it quick and easy to keep things moving.

Oddball items are a little difficult to map correctly in the tax table, so if you have really weird items for sale it may not be the best and/or easiest to get rolling.

Solid Choice of Program

Modules Used

Overall Satisfaction with Avalara