Item: Avalara
Rating: 9
Author: Jere Allen

Overall Satisfaction with Avalara

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We utilize Avalara as a key tool within our online e-commerce platform. As a national distributor of lab products and supplies, we have met the economic Nexus thresholds in a majority of states. AvaTax is a vital part of our assessment and remittance process, starting with the shopping experience of our customer, all the way to managing sales tax exemptions, closing out invoices and filing returns.

Pros and Cons

Pros

Assesses up-to-date sales tax at the local jurisdiction.
Manages sales tax exemptions through the CertCapture Module
Provides ongoing information of changing regulations in individual states.
Allows for easy reconciliation of transactions.
Provides easy registration for SST states.

Cons

Reconciling errors in transactions of SST states is often difficult.
Sometimes support can be a bit slow or not provide as good of information as might be needed.
Scaling up services and what the cost is to do so at renewal can be confusing/fuzzy.

Key Insights

Do you think Avalara delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Avalara's feature set?

Yes

Did Avalara live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of Avalara go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Avalara again?

Yes

Return on Investment

We went from assessing and filing in 3 states to over 20 and did not need to hire additional staff.
We significantly reduced the amount of work needed by our accounting firm to file monthly returns.
Human error has been reduced to less than 5%.
Much of the process is automated so it eliminates hours and hours of manual processes and entries.

Usability

Once integrated and properly set up, the software does most of the work for you. There are occasional hiccups, but that is true of all software. A lot of the ease depends on to what extent you let the platform do for you versus what you take on. For us, it decides which transaction to tax, assesses the tax rate based on the specific jurisdiction (and any changes in the tax rate), stores the exemption certificates and files the returns. Mostly what we are responsible for is reconciling the ledgers to the tax liability worksheets. It turns a complex and long set of tasks into a fairly simple and quick process.

Alternatives Considered

We've looked at some other products but have been satisfied enough with Avalara that we've never had an interest in moving to another platform. It integrates well with our systems and does a great job for us. We have had some relationship management turnover and unmet expectations along with that experience, but generally have been able to resolve the issues.

Likelihood to Recommend

If you are growing online sales and meeting economic thresholds, it is a must; especially if you do not have the time or expertise to do it in-house or your CPA does not specialize in sales tax. If you need a tool that can integrate well with your ERP system, this may likely be right for you. If you meet economic thresholds but have a very limited number of transactions and sell into a limited number of taxing jurisdictions, and you have the staff to handle the process, it might not be appropriate.

Avalara Feature Ratings

Cross-Border Tax Compliance with Avalara

Comments

Please log in to join the conversation

Bobby Sands
(Vendor Representative) commented 6 years ago
Jere, thank you for taking the time to share your experience using Avalara AvaTax, Returns, and CertCapture. We appreciate your feedback. We work hard to deliver our customers the best service possible, and are grateful for the opportunity to work with you.

If your e-commerce is growing, it helps to know what your owing! Avalara does it all.

Modules Used