All Around Efficient Program
October 07, 2022

All Around Efficient Program

Amanda Joest | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Modules Used

  • AvaTax
  • None

Overall Satisfaction with Avalara

We are a small, family-run business, so I started off handling a little bit of state sales tax for our online retail company. More recently I handle all of the tax-exempt customers we serve. Avalara is a good place to keep all of these tax-exempt records. They also communicate directly with our website so that those customers can go to our site, sign in, and place their orders without having to worry about being charged sales tax. It is a simple process and the help desk was friendly and knowledgeable when it came time to set that up. They have been just as friendly and knowledgeable any time I have had a question. This is a good program to start with when you do not have a tax professional on staff. The steps are easy to understand and troubleshooting is efficient.
  • Communicates directly with your online shopping cart so that tax exempt customers' information is stored and there is no lapse in service.
  • Troubleshooting is efficient.
  • Helpdesk staff are friendly and knowledgeable-- they understand that they are working with small business owners and not tax professionals.
  • If a list of tax-exempt codes is available, I have not found it and the help desk has not shared it. That code is necessary for Avalara and the online shopping cart to communicate that a customer is tax-exempt.
  • When I first started using Avalara I could upload documents. Now I need a higher subscription level (as in, pay more money) to do the exact same task I was already doing for years.
  • The one or two issues that I had that were not resolved right away were never really resolved. Luckily, we were able to eventually figure it out, but there were one or two cases (out of many, so still a low number) that were closed without a resolution.

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 are a small company. We do not need a full-time tax professional on staff. Avalara does everything we need for day-to-day compliance and tax exemptions, which saves us time and money compared to hiring a full-time employee or using a tax professional for small tasks.
  • Online shopping cart
  • Online marketplaces
I was not directly involved in this, but due to complications with other tax software, we turned to Avalara and we are very happy with the result.
The program is easy to use and the helpdesk staff is friendly and knowledgeable if you require any assistance. The entire program has been efficient and has solved several tax-related problems for us (such as tax-exempt customers and state sales tax). Pretty much the only reason they don't get a full 10 is that we used them to store tax-exempt certificates and that functionality was taken away from our subscription level after using them for years.
  • Avalara Returns
We do not use these features, so we do not benefit from these additional capabilities.
Our company has used other software similar to Avalara, and we do like it much more in comparison. The helpdesk is helpful and the program is easy to use for simple tax purposes. Most small online stores do not have a need for a full-time tax professional, so Avalara definitely fulfills a need, and most tasks are simple and require little more than a few clicks of a button. There is some room for improvement, such as having necessary codes readily available and not changing functionality to a different/higher subscription level. All in all, it is a great program if your company just needs basic tax information day-to-day.

Avalara Feature Ratings

Sales and Use Taxes
9
Cross-border Taxes
Not Rated
VAT / GST Taxes
Not Rated
Energy and Fuel Taxes
Not Rated
Geolocation for Tax Assessment
8
3rd-Party Software Integrations
9
Tax Data Reporting
8
Compliance Administration Management
8
Tax Exemption Processing
7
Tax Document Management
7
Complex Tax Scenario Management
8