North Carolina Business
January 12, 2018

North Carolina Business

Pat Farl | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Modules Used

  • AvaTax

Overall Satisfaction with Avalara AvaTax

Avalara Ava Tax is used by a 3 person in team in Finance. Not used accross the company. Address the problem of sales tax compliance

Pros

  • Calculating Tax.
  • Filing returns
  • Customer support and troubleshooting

Cons

  • Product/Service explanation is sub optimal. Difficult to connect line items on bill to service agreed to with Sales Rep.
  • Acceptance of quotes. Forced to do online with no chance to review. Difficult to connect/understand line items on quote and how relate to discussions with Sales Rep. Pressure to sign quotes. Repeated email alerts. Inability of Sales Reps to prepare you for quote. End up "What am I signing here" Ask for explanation before signing. No reply. More pressure to sign quotes. More email alerts.
  • Account Management. Have had several occasions of incorrect billings and incorrect services. Taken months to resolve. Nearly impossible to correct short of threatening legal action. Pleaded for Account rep to confirm billing and service with no result. Pleaded that Account Rep take some time and review account before sending any more quotes. No action. I had to reconcile the account and point out the problems (so I would not lose my mind)- Not billed for quotes I signed, billed 3,400 for expired service. Working on correcting account now.
  • You have a great product - BUT your Service Selection/obtuse explanation of service on bills/difficulty in changing/billing errors will damage your product's reputation and cause switches to Vertex. Recommend a review of this process plus training of Account reps.
  • Before 2 people 20 - 40 hours per month. After 1 person 2-8 hours per month
  • Before - manually updating rates - compliance risk.
Its overwhelming. Not sure. I put off training/email alerts from Avalara - my fault. Have great tutorials and help. Can bring a horse to water...
  • Quickbooks
Once understood the process and terms not bad. Intimidating at first - "Do I have time to figure this out?" - leads to procrastination.
Works will with QB. Admin console is good
Exemption certificate management was good too. A good service.

Smaller business with QB appropriate.

Businesses with close monitoring of contracts - not appropriate. As mentioned earlier, your service selection, quoting, account management is not satisfactory.

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