Item: Avalara
Rating: 8
Author: Verified User

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I am an accounting department of one and Avalara helps me immensely to be sales tax compliant. It is used on every level of our business, whether exempt or taxable sales. Avalara figures sales tax on a transaction level and provides reporting to make filing sales tax accurate and timely. Keeping track of sales tax liability is increasingly difficult as time goes on and Avalara helps alleviate stress related to the entire process.

Pros and Cons

Keeping track of taxes in every jurisdiction in the country.
Reporting is easy to use and understand.
Almost seamless integration with accounting software.

Account manager turnover seems high.
Getting answers to questions can be difficult and/or delayed.

Return on Investment

Using Avalara is more of a peace of mind thing.
There is no way our sales tax could be calculated manually with all of the many, many jurisdictions in which we have liability.
Avalara is not cheap, but well worth the cost.

Systems Integrated With

ERP software

It was not super difficult because we had our ERP software company do the integration.

Usability

Once the software is set up it is mostly all behind the scenes and fairly seamless. It probably depends on the software that is used.

Additional Capabilities

CertCapture

We are signed up with CertCapture but for various reasons we are not currently using it as we should. We may use their Returns service at some point in the future.

Alternatives Considered

We only looked at Avalara because it was recommended by our ERP software company.

Likelihood to Recommend

I would recommend Avalara if you have sales in many states and possibilities for sales tax liability in many states. It may not be as useful if you only sell into one or two states. Things are always changing, though. When we started with Avalara a little over 5 years ago we were required to collect and remit sales tax in 2 states. Now we are up to 9 states. If you see your sales makeup changing it's a good idea to have Avalara guide you through.

Peace of Mind!

Modules Used

Overall Satisfaction with Avalara