Avalara vs. Tipalti

As a non-profit that relies on volunteers, having a system that is easy to use and cost effective is crucial. Alavara fit both of those needs for us. Also, since this is a task that is completed only once a year, it needs to be simple to use, which Alavara is. And lastly, since the IRS rules are often complicated and change regularly, it is helpful to have a vendor that stays current with the changes and incorporates them into the process which Alavara does.

Incentivized

The invoice processing element is far, far easier than manually inputting invoices are we were doing previously. The OCR is not perfect, but having it scanned in and ready for review saves a lot of time. The approvals process is fast and effective, and approvers can approve directly from the email without having even to log into the system. The audit trail function allows the finance team to see exactly who has done what to each invoice, and when. Payments, however, are where we see the most benefit. Vendor bank details are stored securely and controls can be put in place to ensure that any changes to vendor data must be approved. Once fully approved, invoices can be scheduled for payment either on a particular date or on the invoice due date, which ensures vendors are paid on a 'Just In Time' basis. All invoices and payments sync seamlessly to our ERP each day.

• Sales tax rates at a "roof top" level
• Has extensive research and documentation on telecommunications industry
• Research is always up to date
• The ability to ask questions and get clarification on specific situations with no limit as to how you ask a question and often get the answer the same day

Incentivized

• Support is phenomenal! Incredibly responsive, always have the answers, super knowledgeable and will assist in bringing resolution to various concerns, as well, providing not just support, but education as well!
• System is almost always working efficiently, very few incidents that slow me down.
• System is incredibly user friendly. I was able to learn it pretty quickly.

• 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.

• In the PO matching queue, there is some clunkiness surrounding updating PO lines. For example, if you need to delete PO lines picked up from the invoice, you currently have to delete each line individually, instead of being able to select multiple and delete.
• Sometimes PO numbers do not properly pick up from the OCR system. For example, the OCR might pick up "PO 18535" instead of "18535". This causes the AP team to have to manually link the PO, creating an extra step.
• For PO-backed Invoices that require you to manually type in the PO amount, there is no option to save your inputs. If there are any changes to the match details (i.e. linking another PO, or unlinking a PO) all inputs are reset to blank.
• If there are non PO line items for an invoice that is in the PO matching queue, there is no option to select a separate department code for that line item.

Incentivized

I have not been able to find a company that does it better than Avalara. I still have lots of problems, but we are working through them. Based on other demos i have seen and talking with peers in other companies, this is the best.

Incentivized

Solid system performance. Suits our needs and solution provider very inclined to accept feedback and involve users in developing the solution to serve both the provider and the ultimate user. Tipalti has streamlined our process that was previously very manual and prone to error. Now there is transparency of information and role.

Incentivized

The UI is simple and straightforward. The site is organized in a manner that is easy to understand for beginners and experts alike. There's also tons of resoruces on Avalara University at your disposal to better understand how Avalara can work best for your business needs. I would recommend Avalara to anyone wanting to investment in the betterment of their business's sales tax function

Incentivized

The system is incredibly easy to use, with most tasks being completed in a small number of clicks. The user interface is very user intuitive and can be navigated very easily. Multiple payments can be made instantaneously and as the vendors manage their payable account we are able to ensure that payments are being sent to the right account. The advanced functionality for duplicate invoices ensures that we are not processing bills twice and we have found that in 100% of cases it has identified a duplicate bill.

Incentivized

I have been using Avalara for years and do not remember ever having an outage during working hours. The service is accurate and dependable.

Tipalti has always been responsive to our questions and concerns.

We do have trouble tying Avalara's reporting back to our POS, but we just got a new POS system and there are bugs we are still trying to work out within the POS system. I do not believe this is an Avalara issue

Incentivized

No issues here. Generally has been pretty fast.

Avalara is not consistent in giving us information timely. For instance, right now, we have a help desk ticket with them that's been open since October. They are still trying to figure it out and we haven't gotten any feedback on where they are at or what is going on. That seems to me a very excessive amount of time to be working on a problem. Was it forgotten? Is there something bigger going on? Do they need something from us? An update would be helpful.

Also, many times when we call with an issue or concern (wrong tax rate for instance) we generally feel like the help desk assumes it's of our doing instead of theirs and doesn't truely listen when we explain the problem because we end up repeating it over and over as well as sending examples. We expect more respect on our end.

Incentivized

Since I also work in customer support, I often have to contact Tipalti's team with questions from our users. Tipalti's support team has always been exceptionally helpful and it was a pleasure to communicate with them. I have always received prompt responses to any inquiries and they are excellent at solving our customers' issues within a short time

Incentivized

I wasn't here when they first started with Avalara.

Incentivized

The documentation online we informative and helpful. The videos from the Avalara institute and the help tab if we have any questions and the search too were helpful. We like the ease of using the click here for more information tool about nexus and the information for the ECM Pro training were helpful. Whenever we have a question we normally get an email along with the tool as to where to find our answer. We also like that it shows information about nexus status of the states we maybe approaching and we can look more into it.

Incentivized

Tipalti provides great How to online guide

The implementation team from Avalara was very knowledgable and did a good job of passing along information so that we could maintain the system and be able to make future changes ourselves. We had asked for some custom tax setup and they worked with us to get additional taxes set up that they didn't previously have. They worked with us to pull our documentation on tax rules and make sure those were included. I had hoped more scenarios would be there out of the box to cut down on the configuration time.

Incentivized

Implementation went smooth as we used and tested everything in the sandbox first

TaxJar is integrated with Kaseya autotask, and this integration is very inefficient and was not easy to set up. Neither TaxJar nor Kaseya support was helpful at all, "rude" is the only word to describe that, whereas Avalara has always tried to be helpful and has been very friendly to work with. TaxJar has no similar capability to retain their tax-calculated transactions and file the returns; TaxJar would calculate the taxes in Kaseya autotask and you would still have to manually import the data into TaxJar if you wanted to subscribe and have them file your returns. Needless to say that was a non-starter.

Incentivized

Both of these products have treated us well and have their pros and cons. We do a lot of acquisitions though and they are just not friendly the more and more you go. Tipalti has been very helpful with the more we grow. Its a key part in integrating finances

Incentivized

There is no change that has to happen as your company grows, Avalara continues to do it's job for any size company

Incentivized

We were given the option of only one integration.

• We went from two staff members down to one staff member dedicated to monitoring and reconciling sales tax with the G/L.
• It takes the one staff member less time to monitor sales tax than having to go through and calculate and file in each state.
• Avalara gives us confidence that the returns are filed accurately and timely every month.

Incentivized

• in my Corporate Controller capacity, I have total visibility of all invoices within the organization
• total staff time spent on the AP process will decrease easily 75% or more
• I have a small staff. Even during PTO of my staff member, I can do necessary AP items, start to finish, in minutes, 100% remotely

Incentivized