Avalara vs. Tipalti

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Avalara
Score 8.1 out of 10
N/A
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.N/A
Tipalti
Score 8.6 out of 10
Mid-Size Companies (51-1,000 employees)
Tipalti automates critical financial processes to drive efficiency, including accounts payable, mass payments, procurement, and expenses, all on one global finance automation platform that grows with the organization, automating, de-risking and simplifying finance.
$129
per month
Pricing
AvalaraTipalti
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
AvalaraTipalti
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesYes
Entry-level Setup FeeOptionalRequired
Additional DetailsPricing starts at $149 per month for the platform fee. Users can upgrade to Tipalti's more advanced capabilities as their businesses gets more complex. The Tipalti pricing model is designed to grow with the user's company. Advanced features such as W-8 tax forms, international tax IDs, or multi-entity payables are available as needed.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
AvalaraTipalti
Considered Both Products
Avalara

No answer on this topic

Tipalti
Chose Tipalti
The AP element of Tipalti was in place when I started, so I was not involved in the selection of the tool.
Chose Tipalti
Paper checks and the occasional wire transfer for urgent payments, Tipalti is 1000% better!

We did evaluate Bill.com, Beanworks, Quickbooks, Avid XChange, and Mineral Tree when searching for an AP software, but found these solutions were not as advanced or did not offer all of …
Features
AvalaraTipalti
Type of tax
Comparison of Type of tax features of Product A and Product B
Avalara
7.4
339 Ratings
6% below category average
Tipalti
-
Ratings
Sales and Use Taxes8.9332 Ratings00 Ratings
Cross-border Taxes7.471 Ratings00 Ratings
VAT / GST Taxes5.960 Ratings00 Ratings
Energy and Fuel Taxes7.526 Ratings00 Ratings
Tax Reporting & Compliance
Comparison of Tax Reporting & Compliance features of Product A and Product B
Avalara
8.4
317 Ratings
7% above category average
Tipalti
-
Ratings
Geolocation for Tax Assessment9.0191 Ratings00 Ratings
3rd-Party Software Integrations7.8253 Ratings00 Ratings
Tax Data Reporting8.5283 Ratings00 Ratings
Compliance Administration Management9.0216 Ratings00 Ratings
Tax Exemption Processing8.5229 Ratings00 Ratings
Tax Document Management8.1219 Ratings00 Ratings
Complex Tax Scenario Management7.8151 Ratings00 Ratings
Payment Management
Comparison of Payment Management features of Product A and Product B
Avalara
-
Ratings
Tipalti
9.0
58 Ratings
18% above category average
Customizable Approval Policies00 Ratings9.246 Ratings
Financial Document Management00 Ratings8.143 Ratings
Payment Status Tracking00 Ratings9.355 Ratings
Payment Audit Trail00 Ratings9.349 Ratings
Duplicate Bill Detection00 Ratings9.049 Ratings
Advanced OCR00 Ratings9.042 Ratings
Electronic Funds Transfer00 Ratings9.344 Ratings
Accounts Payable
Comparison of Accounts Payable features of Product A and Product B
Avalara
-
Ratings
Tipalti
8.2
52 Ratings
22% above category average
Automated Accounts Payable Processes00 Ratings8.849 Ratings
Vendor Management00 Ratings9.149 Ratings
Tax Form Preparation00 Ratings6.729 Ratings
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User Ratings
AvalaraTipalti
Likelihood to Recommend
8.1
(451 ratings)
8.7
(97 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
10.0
(30 ratings)
9.1
(4 ratings)
Usability
8.7
(443 ratings)
8.9
(73 ratings)
Availability
8.0
(9 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
Performance
8.0
(9 ratings)
8.2
(1 ratings)
Support Rating
3.6
(21 ratings)
7.3
(14 ratings)
In-Person Training
8.0
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Online Training
9.0
(4 ratings)
7.3
(2 ratings)
Implementation Rating
10.0
(198 ratings)
7.3
(3 ratings)
Configurability
9.0
(6 ratings)
7.3
(2 ratings)
Ease of integration
9.0
(12 ratings)
6.4
(1 ratings)
Product Scalability
10.0
(8 ratings)
6.4
(1 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
7.5
(9 ratings)
8.2
(1 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
8.0
(9 ratings)
8.2
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
AvalaraTipalti
Likelihood to Recommend
Avalara
I find Avalara to work very well if you are using a software system that is integrated with Avalara, and it is set up to calculate the tax and file the returns. It is very streamlined and efficient. It doesn't work as well if the tax is calculated elsewhere and you have Avalara filing your returns; the options for getting the tax info into Avalara are very limited.
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Tipalti
I would tell them that it manually syncs to ERPS. Additionally I would include the fact that you can pay multiple entities in one pay run allowing to be very efficient. I would also include that they can add rules to bill approvals or set up auto payments for certain vendors. Lastly, there are many reports you can run providing you will very informational data in seconds.
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Pros
Avalara
  • 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
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Tipalti
  • Tipalti has a very user friendly interface, clearly laid out and easy to navigate
  • The audit trail feature is hugely helpful to track an invoice's progress through the system
  • Being able to schedule invoices to be paid exactly on their due date ensures we pay on time but not earlier than necessary
  • We were able to put in strong controls around changes to vendor data
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Cons
Avalara
  • Avalara needs to be able to provide tax and legal advice, so we don't have to go to an outside source.
  • Some states we file in have more than just sales tax on the return. For example, Washington has B&O tax, tire tax, sales and use tax. It would help a lot if Avalara could report all of these taxes, so we don't have to file manually.
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Tipalti
  • The report that provides the "Not payable" vendors does not work well for us, particularly because the sync to our ERP goes both ways, which means all of the employees also sync over to Tipalti and remain as Not Payable. So the list is very long, and I don't find a good use for it.
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Likelihood to Renew
Avalara
We need their help with filing and keeping track of things. It is very likely we are in the process of renewing right now. Autumn is our case manager and she has been a great help in keeping us updated on our usage and renewal. I feel we will be using this for a very long time.
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Tipalti
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.
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Usability
Avalara
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
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Tipalti
Two-time Tipalti selector, implementor, and user. The payment features in the app saves many steps in the payment process. No longer do you have to set-up or upload payment information to your bank and then go back to your accounting system and mark items as paid. Tipalti does all of this with a click of a mouse. The payment feature is the stand out feature. Many vendors can process your invoices. Look at how at the payment process of others.....you will see.
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Reliability and Availability
Avalara
I have been using Avalara for years and do not remember ever having an outage during working hours. The service is accurate and dependable.
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Tipalti
Tipalti has always been responsive to our questions and concerns.
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Performance
Avalara
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
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Tipalti
No issues here. Generally has been pretty fast.
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Support Rating
Avalara
In my experience, numerous questions, and particularly those regarding billing issues are just ignored, and it is impossible to get to someone to discuss. Your account manager will tell you they are taking care of it and then it just goes into a black hole.
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Tipalti
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
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In-Person Training
Avalara
I wasn't here when they first started with Avalara.
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Tipalti
No answers on this topic
Online Training
Avalara
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.
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Tipalti
Tipalti provides great How to online guide
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Implementation Rating
Avalara
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.
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Tipalti
The salesperson involved was involved in implementation which I found very helpful.
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Alternatives Considered
Avalara
When I first started my position, we were already in the process of going into Avalara. I am unsure why our previous Controller selected Avalara, but I do believe it was because of the ease of use and aiding with determining nexus in states where we ship our products.
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Tipalti
From initial implementation through to user experience, Tipalti has been able to exceed our expectations in terms of its functionality and useability. We have found with other systems implemented in the past they did not match our expectations which resulted in us terminating these services.
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Contract Terms and Pricing Model
Avalara
No answers on this topic
Tipalti
I did not make the decision to purchase this product.
Read full review
Scalability
Avalara
There is no change that has to happen as your company grows, Avalara continues to do it's job for any size company
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Tipalti
We were given the option of only one integration.
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Return on Investment
Avalara
  • The ROI with Avalara has been significant. We did not have to hire additional staff to manage sales tax. Before Avalara, when we managed taxes in-house, we constantly received late filing notices and paid related penalties. That all stopped once Avalara took over.
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Tipalti
  • Vendor onboarding has taken the responsibility from one person to the Vendor directly. This provides the vendor with the ability to enter their own banking information for payments and upload their Federal W9 form.
  • Vendors can upload their own invoices to the system, taking the possibility that our AP team did not receive an emailed or mailed invoice to upload. This also increases payment efficiency as the vendor's invoice is processed in a more timely manner.
  • AP can review invoices for accuracy and concentrate on how to code an invoice, rather than be a paper pusher or a data entry clerk. AP doesn't spend time searching for invoices that might be a duplicate, the system will communicate this on the software review process and if AP has uploaded by email the same invoice multiple times, an email will be sent to AP to indicate that the invoice was not uploaded due to duplication.
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ScreenShots

Avalara Screenshots

Screenshot of the Avalara portal homepageScreenshot of returns, appearing in the Avalara portalScreenshot of transactionsScreenshot of reportsScreenshot of jurisdiction details

Tipalti Screenshots

Screenshot of Intelligent invoicing workflowScreenshot of Mobile approvals for invoices and paymentsScreenshot of Brandable self-service supplier portal (including handling tax forms)Screenshot of Brandable self-service portal to collect and validate payment detailsScreenshot of Combined payment methods, currencies, and entities in a single payment fileScreenshot of an early payment, which can be offered to suppliers through email or the supplier portal