We use Avalara for: 1) Excise tax filings (tax department) 2) For sales tax verification on live invoices (commercial department)
It addresses the ease of filing tax returns with various tax jurisdictions. Separately, it assists in calculating the proper tax amounts for our invoices sent to customers.
Pros
Effectively and efficiently handle sales tax billing on our invoices
Interface with the various tax jurisdictions for uploading specific tax return files
Cons
At times, we've had intermittent response time for general resolutions.
Haven't compared pricing to other competitors recently, but I'd be curious where it stands for similar products.
Likelihood to Recommend
Generally, at least for the products our company uses, Avalara is well suited. I am not sure if they are the most competitive in pricing but we have been satisfied with the products in most respects. I will say the interaction I've had with our reps has been helpful on all aspects. They are pleasant to deal with at all times.
We use Avalara for sales tax determination, and we utilize the tax law research functionality. We have multiple ledgers that roll up into one legal entity and Avalara was easy to implement across the various ledgers and product offerings. We enjoy the accuracy of the research tool and ease of use. It's become our go to research tool for sales and uses tax research.
Pros
Easy implementation
Allows the use of GPS coordinates
Provides quick solutions to meet tax law requirements - i.e. the CO transportation fee.
Cons
Communication, communication, communication -room for improvement on getting help with resolutions.
Helping customers with TLS issues.
The first level of support is not very helpful. We are often referred to our technical account manager for further research. Have the TAM train the first level support staff.
We pay to get responses within 24 hours, but a response of "this has been escalated to your TAM" should not count as a solution response.
Likelihood to Recommend
Avalara is well suited to help customers of various sizes and can assist with quick implementations. The report output from the console allows for easy tax compliance workpapers and great for pulling historical data for audit purposes.
VU
Verified User
Manager in Corporate (Oil & Energy company, 1001-5000 employees)
Avalara, through AvaTax and CertCapture, greatly simplifies our company's compliance with sales tax filings. The representatives are usually very quick to respond when opening a support ticket and are very helpful when needing to ask questions about how to handle new and complex transactions. CertCapture makes it very easy to record tax-exempt forms for clients and reduces the frequency of rebills for customers that were erroneously charged sales tax. AvaTax makes reviewing monthly sales activity for multiple states streamlined, and having Avalara file sales tax returns on our behalf of us allows our finance department to spend less time on the more tedious compliance aspect of sales tax.
Pros
Filing Sales Tax Returns
Correctly Calculating sales tax
Support for voluntary disclosure agreements
Cons
Setting up new companies
Easier summary for monthly activity for multiple companies
Likelihood to Recommend
Avalara is well suited for companies that have sales activity, and nexus, in multiple states. It is especially helpful if there is a larger amount of customers that are exempt from sales tax, or selling products with different or special tax rates. If expanding the business into new states, Avalara is great to track the activity in the new states to monitor how close you are to triggering nexus. Avalara may be less appropriate if business activities are limited to a few states with minimal customers that are exempt from sales tax and more standard sales tax rates.
VU
Verified User
Professional in Finance and Accounting (Oil & Energy company, 51-200 employees)
We use it for obtaining our sales tax rates. We also use CertCapture for exemption certificates.
Pros
Cloud based
Flexibility -- allows me to immediately change/override an address to get the rate I need.
Visibility of transactions
Cons
They used to have a color coded map that showed the spot address tax rate and the color coded areas showed the area of that tax rate area -- as well as the nearby ones and those rates. That went away. I now pay someone else for something similar. This was a big blow and disappointment.
Communication process seems to have gotten worse over the years (maybe as your company has gotten bigger) in my opinion.
My account, transactions numbers, etc. used to be easily seen when I log in. Now it's either taken away, wrong figures, unable to show, etc. Weird and very annoying.
Likelihood to Recommend
It's better than the other two systems I've used in the past. I like the cloud based aspect. I also like the flexibility. There are simple items that can easily make it better. Some things you had before; some things just to add. Some are basic common sense.
VU
Verified User
Director in Finance and Accounting (Mining & Metals company, 5001-10,000 employees)
We use [Avalara] in our excise tax department. It is used to produce all necessary returns and schedules for motor fuel transactions.
Pros
Quick response to trouble tickets
User guide is helpful for some situations that don't require heavy lifting
Online videos (youtube) are very helpful
Friendly attitude from case ticket support staff
Cons
User guide could include real world examples (with screen shots) of issues and how to fix
New and updated youtube videos would be great on issues industry has run into
Avalara puts a lot of resources towards Sales Tax, and feels like they ignore Excise tax at times (the CRUSH conference was very heavy on Sales tax info and very little on Excise).
Likelihood to Recommend
Avalara is a great product, but there could be more attention and resources directed towards the Excise tax product. They could be more proactive in regard to rate updates and legislation changes. Depending on volume and complexity of a business Avalara can be a big time saver and a step towards automation and electronic files.
Avalara's AvaTax system is being used in conjunction with QuickBooks by our accounts receivable department to insure sales tax compliance with all taxable sales. Avalara's Returns program is being used by our accounts payable department to insure registration and filing in all states where Nexus has been met.
Pros
Sales tax calculations per Wayfair
State sales tax returns
Cons
QuickBooks Integration
Product training for initial setup
Likelihood to Recommend
As a remote seller, we use AvaTax to configure sales tax on all sales transactions with our customers. Although it is set up to work with sales tax compliance in all states, it is better suited for states that are part of the Multistate Tax Commission. In our particular situation, we do not find it is appropriate for use on transactions with our vendors.
Avalara is being used for sales tax calculation when selling products. Avalara streamlines the tax calculations by eliminating the need for our company to enter the tax level and percentages by state, city and county, an activity that can be time-consuming and prone-error. Also, Avalara provides excellent support when any issue arises between our ERP and Avalara.
Pros
Avalara maintains tax % level by county and even by city zone more accurate than we expected.
Avalara provides excellent customer support when questions arises.
Avalara Cert Captures streamlines the capture of customer tax certificates efficiently.
Cons
Avalara Customer Support sometimes takes 30 minutes to reply. I get they are too busy, but I normally send the Q and just get to do some other things in between.
Changes to the Websites are too drastically from the latest version to the previous one. A video explaining the changes would be handy for us, customers, to understand the changes.
Likelihood to Recommend
Avalara is well suited for Tax Calculation for USA. I wonder if Avalara is also available for all countries in the continent (Latin American countries). Our ERP does not have Geo Localization for tracking where our shipments are being shipped to. Most of our shipments are to fields, or a well in the middle of the country, where even the Avalara finds it hard to provide the correct tax percent correct sometimes.
We use Avalara for calculating sales tax in the states we have Nexus in. We also use the exemption module within the software to store our customers' exemption certificates and keep track of any renewals. Recently we signed up to have Avalara start filing our sales tax and remit payments on our behalf.
Pros
Ease of navigation through the software.
Convenient to pull sales tax reports for any of the states you file in for a particular period.
Maintaining the exemption certificates for customers has become much easier, along with the ability to upload a copy of their exemption certificate for storage.
Cons
A lot of our business is in the oil field which may be located away from any main city. It would be helpful if LAT Longs could be used as opposed to a zip code.
Likelihood to Recommend
Avalara has really simplified the reporting and upkeep of our tax reporting. Everything is in one spot and easy to navigate and track. The implementation was easy and the implementation team was very helpful.
We use the product to file state and federal tax returns. The business problem that it address for us, is to not make and support internal solutions and keep up with the EDI and form changes the states randomly makes.
Pros
Track changes, such as return data from month to month, or state-related changes, such as tax rates.
Easy to understand the logic to get transactions to the correct return.
Easy to get transactions into the system.
Easy to get data out of the system for ad-hoc reporting.
Cons
Some system enhancements / improvements seem to be based on programming ideas vs. user ease of use
Requesting help with a module can be lengthy and time consuming
Likelihood to Recommend
For us, it was refreshing that the state tax returns scenarios came with "Standard Scenarios" which only need to be slightly modified to work with our data. They also assigned consultants, to help implement the system, who actually understand the state tax return requirements. This helped us think about ways to improve our process as we were setting up rules.
