Item: Avalara
Rating: 10
Author: Jason Brooks

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use Avalara's AvaTax service to calculate our sales tax for our ecommerce website. We use the available reporting to assist in our in-house preparation of our state returns. Eventually, we intend to utilize Avalara for our return preparation and exemption certificate management software (CertCapture), and based on our past experience with Avalara, we are confident in Avalara's capabilities.

Pros and Cons

System integration
Reporting
Responsive customer service

TrustFile is a service we use and it auto-bills on a credit card that we used to initiate the service. It would be better if all of Avalara's services were invoiced, as it creates a consistent and clean audit trail, which assists not only in audits but also in tracking these expenses (i.e., budgeting).

Return on Investment

Tracking jurisdictional tax rates in house would be a full-time job, at a minimum. So by using Avalara, we are definitely saving time in this regard in addition to ensuring we have the most accurate information available.

Systems Integrated With

We are using AvaTax for our ecommerce website.

My background is not in IT, but my understanding is that the process was not difficult at all. We simply use the ship-to location to look up the applicable rate(s) in Avalara's database.

Usability

From what I've experienced, Avalara's systems are very user friendly and intuitive. We are able to access the reporting we need quickly and efficiently and, most importantly, we have never had any doubts regarding the accuracy of the information. We currently use Avalara's TrustFile service to assist us in return prep. This service has also been very easy to use, all things considered.

Additional Capabilities

Avalara Returns
CertCapture

We have not used these services yet; however, we intend to begin using Avalara Returns and CertCapture within the next six months.

Likelihood to Recommend

For us, Avalara has been critical in determining the appropriate tax rate for our ecommerce retail sales. There are thousands of jurisdictions and rates that are changing all the time, so it is critical that companies use a third party that keeps track of this information so that the correct tax amount is collected.

With the current fallout surrounding economic nexus legislation occurring around the country, our company has discovered that we need to register in 21 new states. As we have prepared to enter into these states, we have learned the hard way that our exemption certificates are not up to par and that our current processes for collecting and maintaining them is not adequate for today's environment. Unless you are only in a handful of states with a handful of customers, a software solution is the only way to go, and Avalara's CertCapture is a platform that we are excited to use as it will automate much of the administrative burden behind this process.

Want more time for other things? Then use Avalara!

Modules Used

Overall Satisfaction with Avalara