My professional advice is to try to find an alternative to Avalara!
September 01, 2023
My professional advice is to try to find an alternative to Avalara!
Score 1 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Modules Used
- AvaTax
- Returns
- Research
Overall Satisfaction with Avalara
Determination if sales tax is in applicable in a particular state and/or locality. Also, file sales tax returns in all states applicable. Theoretically, use the product for various other questions related to sales tax, however, that has not worked that well.
- Determination as to sales tax applicability in states and localities, although, in my opinion, they have provided incorrect information in some instances.
- If you’re able to get the state set up properly, filing of sales tax returns as required
- I find it virtually impossible to access people when you have issues with anything
- In my experience, everything runs through account managers and they are non-responsive and unavailable most of the time.
- In my experience, 99% of all communication with anybody at Avalara has to be done via some ridiculous form or via email. Human contact is extremely difficult to resolve an issue that sometimes requires human to human contact.
Do you think Avalara delivers good value for the price?
No
Are you happy with Avalara's feature set?
Yes
Did Avalara live up to sales and marketing promises?
No
Did implementation of Avalara go as expected?
No
Would you buy Avalara again?
No
- In my opinion, Avalara is a nightmare to learn and set up properly virtually no help from Avalara other than videos.
- I found that Avalara’s marketing and sales are excellent, however, in my experience, Customer Service is extremely poor and once they sign you to a deal, they are missing in action.
- QuickBooks
- Sage-intacct
For us, immigration is fairly easy
- Avalara Returns
- Professional Services (nexus studies, registrations, backfiling, etc.)
In my experience, the manager returns works pretty well, unless something is not set up properly then you can have major issues. Of course, I found that trying to figure out what the issues are can be a nightmare. For us, professional services is extremely slow. Sometimes effective and sometimes not.
Avalara Feature Ratings
Avalara Support
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
Good followup Problems get solved Quick Initial Response | Slow Resolution Not kept informed Escalation required Difficult to get immediate help Need to explain problems multiple times Support doesn't seem to care |
Yes, but it really doesn’t make any difference for us. In my opinion, Avalara‘s support sucks.
Yes - In my experience, Nope [re: bug not resolved], the question was pretty much ignored. I pointed out to them that there was a contradiction on a sales tax ability issue between two sections of their software.
In my experience, for a brief period of time my account manager was helpful but after the sales process was completed, she disappeared. Now, she’s not responsive and doesn’t return emails and, of course, it’s impossible to reach her by phone.
Using Avalara
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
None | Do not like to use Unnecessarily complex Difficult to use Requires technical support Not well integrated Inconsistent Slow to learn Cumbersome Feel nervous using Lots to learn |
- Signing in
- Integration between registering in a state, and actually having Avalara file the sales tax returns
- Calculating sales tax via an integration in new states