Tax compliance software provides organizations with accurate local and federal tax calculations, and automates tax form filing and reporting. Leading tax compliance vendors offer separate applications to manage particular kinds of transactions and their associated taxes.
Sales and use tax compliance apps calculate and process appropriate taxes to be levied across jurisdictions. Value-Added Tax (VAT) apps track regulations and automate calculation across complex scenarios. Leading tax compliance software also supports customs tax management for international sales. And many vendors offer managed tax filing and audit reporting for both corporations and small businesses.
Beyond these capabilities, tax compliance software provide management of other tax related tasks. These include exemption certificate search and management, e-way bill processing and tracking, returns processing with multi-jurisdictional compliance, and tax data analytics and audit reporting.
Within the tax compliance software landscape, vendors may focus on specific segments of the consumer market. This is typically based on company revenue size:
Smaller businesses making 10 million or less
Midsize businesses making between 10 million and several hundred million
Enterprises making anywhere north of 500 million
However, not all vendors focus on a specific market segment, and many have offerings that are well suited for all business sizes. TrustRadius currently does not have a ‘company revenue’ filter for sorting reviews, but the ‘company size’ filter can serve as a useful proxy.
Integrations are essential for tax compliance software. Sales tax compliance software may integrate with ecommerce system or shopping cart, for instance. Other integrations are with corporate ERP, budgeting and accounting software, procurement, and supply chain. Leading vendors tout integrations with many popular applications.
Types of taxes managed by tax compliance software include:
sales & use tax
value-added taxes (VAT) or goods and services taxes (GST)
employee income tax
corporate tax
customs tax & tariffs
Common features of tax compliance software are as follows:
geolocation for correct tax assessment
return filing and tracking
e-way bill management
tax calculation & payment processing
tax exemption processing & management
automated complex scenario management (e.g. tax holiday)
exemption certificate storage and search
tax data analytics
Tax compliance software is often cloud-based and available on a per month subscription basis. Lower tier plans support a relatively limited number of monthly transactions. Leading tax compliance software vendors offer a range of applications supporting the needs of specific industries (e.g. manufacturing), global corporations operating in multiple countries, or modules for only the specific kinds of transactions needed.
Additionally some leading vendors provide all-in-one offerings for small and midsize businesses. These support management of local taxes, requisite sales and vendor transactions, document filing, and reporting in a single platform.
Avalara AvaTax connects to the software that businesses already have and delivers sales tax decisions based on precise geo-location in more than 12,000 taxing jurisdictions in the U.S.
Vertex® Indirect Tax O Series® combines tax research with the latest software technology in order to provide tax departments with the tools necessary to deliver accuracy and consistency in every transaction. According to the vendor, Vertex brings together the tax process acumen, technology innova...
Vertex is a provider of tax technology and services, helping to enable companies of all sizes to realize the full strategic potential of the tax function by automating and integrating tax processes, while leveraging advanced and predictive analytics of tax data. Vertex Cloud Indirect Tax promis...
Canopy is tax practice management software from Canopy, Inc., with accounting functionality designed for tax professionals and their customers. It includes tax resolution analytics, automatic IRS form population, client management, transcript delivery and reporting, custom service workflows, pena...
TaxJar offers automated sales tax reporting and filing. According to the vendor, capabilities include: Accurate, Detailed Sales Tax Reports: TaxJar’s local jurisdiction reports show sales and sales tax collected not only for each state, but for local jurisdiction (counties, cities, special jur...
Intuit ProConnect Tax Online is cloud-based professional tax software. It integrates with QuickBooks and includes a client portal so that clients can input their tax data online. ProConnect has a pay-per-return pricing structure.
ONESOURCE is a tax compliance software package.
The Sovos Intelligent Compliance Cloud includes tax automation capabilities, including sales and use tax, 1099 reporting, ACA reporting, VAT solutions, and FATCA compliance.
CCH SureTax (formerly Sales Tax, now owned and supported by Wolters Kluwer), is a tax compliance application available online or on-premise, supporting tax rate calculation and form filing.
Oracle Tax Reporting Cloud is a tax reporting platform integrated with all financial processes. It is designed to handle global tax reporting requirements on a global basis.
CSC Corptax Compliant is a tax compliance software solution oriented towards the needs of corporations, automating the tax filing process with data integration and reporting capabilities.
Sovos Compliance now offers Taxify, a tax management, processing, and compliance application.
British company VATBox offers a VAT recovery and governance application.
SAP Tax Compliance is a global tax management platform for enterprises supporting tax calculation, validation, tax transfer management, and advanced tax reporting.
TaxCloud is a cloud-based tax calculating, analyzing and compliance application from FedTax (or Federal Tax Authority) headquartered in Connecticut.
Bloomberg Tax, a subsidiary of Bloomberg, offers Bloomberg Tax Advantage, a tax management and automation platform supporting corporate tax research, calculation, and compliance.
SS&C company Advent Software offers Axys, a turnkey portfolio reporting and accounting solution providing workflow automation, tax compliance automation, multicurrency accounting, and related features.
Fast Enterprises headquartered in Centennial offers GenTax, a commercial of the shelf (COTS) is an integrated tax processing platform designed to support agencies.
Fast Enterprises headquartered in Centennial offers FastUI, an integrated unemployment insurance tax and benefit administration platform for state agencies.
INTRASOFT International headquartered in Luxembourg offers the ESKORT Compliance Solution, a tax audit and compliance suite.