Item: Avalara
Rating: 9
Author: Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with Avalara

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We mostly use Avalara for filing sales tax returns and charging tax on invoices. We are able to pull workbooks with sales information that we can use to analyze taxability for new states/countries.

Pros and Cons

Pros

Compatible with our accounting systems
Research information is available
Many options for reports that we can use for filing foreign returns outside of Avalara

Cons

The site for looking at transactions is very slow and drags out our monthly review processes.
Our attempt to complete a VDA with Avalara was a horrible experience that was barely started and eventually moved to another provider after not being able to get past the basic setup. It included weeks of pushing.

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?

I wasn't involved with the selection/purchase process

Did implementation of Avalara go as expected?

I wasn't involved with the implementation phase

Would you buy Avalara again?

Yes

It is easy to use, but I do experience some very slow processing times when searching transactions. I often find the page reloading itself with a note that says "it's not you, it's us". A process that could be done in an hour ends up taking 3 hours when completed between the 8th-10th day of the month.

Additional Capabilities

Avalara Returns

We have benefited from the Avalara returns capability with how user friendly it can be. We tried Professional Services when working on a VDA and after a few unsuccessful weeks of getting the process moving, we cancelled. I am not sure if we use or have used CertCapture in our business.

Likelihood to Recommend

Avalara is helpful in keeping our tax rates up to date for the various jurisdictions where we are registered and provides a simple process for filing returns. I would not recommend using their services when service (as opposed to technology) is required. For example, VDA assistance was not a pleasant experience and there are other providers that may charge more, but are worth every penny you pay to get them done in a timely manner.

Avalara Feature Ratings

Comments

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Bobby Sands
(Vendor Representative) commented 2 years ago
Thank you for sharing your feedback with us. We are happy to read our products are working well for you, but the issues you've described with support are not what we want. If you're willing to continue the conversation, we'd love the chance to learn more. Reach out to us at customercare@avalara.com so we can assist.

Basic use of Avalara

Modules Used