Item: Avalara
Rating: 10
Author: Verified User

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use Avalara in conjuction with our accounting software to manage sales tax charges and exemptions. This software is being specifically used by our finance department. It allows us to manage and track which of our customers are exempt or taxable and in which states. It also helps to ensure that our exemptions are valid and allows us to effectively monitor when our customers' exemptions are going to expire.

Pros and Cons

Simplicity of use
Accurately tracks tax
Great for managing exempt customers

Ease of use in item taxability
Better notification settings/alerts for when we are nearing our plan thresholds for document counts
System sometimes "shorts out" when adding new customers and causes us to have to enter all of the information a second time

Return on Investment

Time spent on tax returns
Compliance with state laws
Improved our effectiveness at taxing customers appropriately

Systems Integrated With

Sage ERP Software

This was done prior to my arrival at the company, so I am not sure how difficult a process this was to achieve.

Usability

I just feel that it is a very easy website to use and navigate. It is very straightforward and not hard to find what you are looking for. I like that you can enter expiration dates for your customers' exemptions and be notified when you need to contact those customers about renewed exemptions.

Additional Capabilities

CertCapture

I do not feel that we have benefited from CertCapture, mainly because I do not feel that the system is easy to use or navigate. I think it tends to be confusing and we had issues where exemptions that were added through that program were not accurately pulling all of the customer data into the standard Avalara site, causing them to show on the sync error report. The issue had to do with with pulling the customer addresses.

Alternatives Considered

We have not analyzed other products at this time. If this analysis was done prior to our organization selecting Avalara then I would not be aware of it because the organization has been using Avalara for several years prior to me being hired. Our satisfaction to this point has prevented us from analyzing any other products.

Likelihood to Recommend

Tax purposes for small to midsized companies. It is well suited for monitoring taxability of your customers, especially those customers that have many locations spanning multiple different states. For example, we have several customers that are exempt in 30+ states and Avalara makes managing those exemptions much easier than if we were trying to self-monitor.

Avalara is Great

Modules Used

Overall Satisfaction with Avalara