Item: Avalara
Rating: 7
Author: Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with Avalara

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Avalara is used in the accounting/finance department for sales tax recon/payment, and CertCapture is used by our CSRs to collected exempt certificates.

Pros and Cons

Pros

Updating and staying current on sales tax rate changes.
Filing state tax returns.
Providing helpful webinars.

Cons

CertCapture can take many days to validate a certificate, and/or does not provide explanation as to why a certificate was not validated.
Submitting cases to Avalara is not helpful. Once an answer has been provided, the case is immediately closed and no helpful dialogue is allowed.
When a mistake on return filing occurs, whether customer or Avalara's, correction of the error takes far too long.

Return on Investment

When working properly, Avalara is very good at what it does. I do not feel the need to babysit the system, which allows my time to be spent doing other work.
It is very positive that our organization does not have to maintain departmental staff in order to accomplish and complete the service that Avalara provides.
Avalara is linked to our sales system which is also very helpful and time saving in calculating or exempting transactional sales taxes.

Avalara is very good at what it does. Significant problems can arise when errors or problems occur (ie September 2020 filings.) Communication and determining answers can be very time intense. It is a usable system once training has been provided. Simple questions are difficult to have answered through the chat feature. I have waited longer than 45 minutes for my chat call to be answered. Some of this speaks to the organization overall, as well as the system usability.

Likelihood to Recommend

Avalara has the monopoly on sales tax filings and this can create a situation where customer service is not a priority, as customers don't really have anywhere else to go for this type of service. It has appeared as though the company grew very quickly, and as the customer we experienced problems due to Avalara's rapid growth. In the past two years my organization has had four customer service reps within Avalara. This does not lend itself to having a CSR that knows our organization and business.

Avalara Feature Ratings

Comments

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Bobby Sands
(Vendor Representative) commented 6 years ago
Thank you for taking the time to share your experience using Avalara AvaTax, Returns and CertCapture. From what you wrote, we recognize that there are things that have gone well and areas that need improvement. We would appreciate an opportunity to learn more about your experience. If you’re open to a conversation, please contact customercare@avalara.com.

Avalara Review

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