I use Avalara's CertCapture program for filing all of the tax certs my company receives. If you are still keeping physical copies, you need to consider this. CertCapture allows the user to assign account numbers and names to every cert uploaded - it also allows expiration dates to be set. A report is processed every couple of weeks to see which of our customers will need to send in updated paperwork. Then an automated email and fax are sent, reminding them what certs are needed. Staying in compliant is one of my top priorities and this allows me to do so with ease.

I am honestly struggling to think of anything negative to say about this software. We currently use Vertex for our tax calculations, i would like to start using AvaTax though. I work for a large corporation and from what I've been told AvaTax doesn't meet our business needs. I would like to see that change in the coming years.

Avalara reporting tools such as Credit Carry forward balance and liability worksheet. The reports are very detailed and would help in an audit situation.

I don't have any issues with the software It's the customer service that is lacking.

TERRIBLE! There are a lot of configuration issues that we had discussed in the pre-sales cycle (like CertCapture integration, configuring marketplace facilitatort exceptions, etc.) these were all ignored and never were addressed by Avalara when we went live. Tons of issues, then their customer service doesn't respond to cases for weeks at a time. Just a really horrible customer experience. AVOID AVOID AVOID!

I liked that it integrated with all of our platforms (i.e. NetSuite, Magento and future state Shopify+) and the quoted price came in much lower than other comparative software solutions.

The setup is not intuitive. There are tons of issues where it doesn't calculate sales tax correctly or at all for some states or on returns. There are multiple different logins for different services/features (i.e. AvaTax, CertCapture, General Avalara account) which are frustrating. Also had a number of issues with our NetSuite integrations. CertCapture required us to manually upload each state certificate for each customer, then manually review and validate each one all over again. You select a state, then it doesn't select a Country and errors out, but never asks you to enter a country.... There's are just a whole lot of things not to like about Avalara. There are a lot of configuration issues that we discussed in the pre-sales cycle, then were ignored and never addressed once we went to implement. Implementation shhTheir customer service is

Its great! Dont need to worry about filing deadlines unless the state goes through an overhaul of IT systems

its convenient and worry free. I never have to worry about getting tax filed

When changes are made, either throught the state or otherwise, getting in touch with Avalara is frustrating

We had accuracy issues with our last sales tax provider and since implementing AvaTax, we have decreased our risk of charging the incorrect tax rates to our customers located across the US.

Once the initial setup is completed and tested, Avalara takes the guesswork out of sales tax. It is more accurate and cost effective than our previous third party sales tax provider. Also, the product is so easy to use and to navigate.

The implementation (like with all other software) hit snags that were unexpected, and took our IT team some extra time to link our billing system with AvaTax.

No response to emails, 1-1.5 hour on hold wait time to talk with a rep that may or may not help you. Avalara claimed to have a solution that would handle the general/manufacturing tax rates in Alabama and Mississippi and this was a blatant lie. After waiting 3 months we had to contract for a customer solution with our software provider. I would not recommend going with Avalara due to the horrible customer service and the fact state agencies hate working with them (and that is a quote from 5 different states). Do your homework and if you have to tax at general or manufacturing rates then find another alternative. We had a delay during implementation due to a merger and Avalara would not credit any unused tax return filings. We were billed for tax returns they never filed and then sent a bill for the upcoming year.

Reports easy to read Exemption certificate management and repository. Keeps tax rates updated Geolocator for taxing purposes

Customer service is HORRENDOUS. No credit for unused tax return filings. Web portal is not easy to navigate Avalara servers are slow to update when working on month-end tie-outs to ERP system Dropped invoicing lines on backordered items, these have to be manually entered in Avalara

I use with Quickbooks Enterprise. It causes a lot of problems. Can't be used with multiple companies open but I can work around that. The software pops up when not expected and keeps you from sending email invoices withing the QB app. Address verification pops up on one computer for the address that another user is entering on a different computer. Customer service is non existent. After entering a ticket, you get the auto generated response then nothing after that. 1st ticket got an actual response after 4 business days. A second ticket never had a response.

It does what it says it is supposed to do. Online reports are fine

Very buggy Slow Frequently shuts itself down

Terrible. Customer support is non-existent.

Technology and software seems pretty solid so far.

I don't trust people at Avalara. We went live on 1/1/2021 and they processed returns for non-SST states for the month of January but they did NOT process returns for SST states for the month of January. Wait. What? How does it make any sense? They said my SST service starts on 2/1/2021 and not on 1/1/2021 (but somehow non-SST state service starts on 1//1/2021?!). How does it make any sense when we went live on 1/1/2021. The sales reps rushed to sign me up in December so I can start my service at the beginning of the year. They never mentioned anything about my service not starting until 2/1/2021. When I contacted them about why they haven't filed returns for SST states, they were extremely slow in their response. Customer support is terrible. I don't recommend it. They said they can still back file January returns but they would charge me $250 per state. That's $6,000 for 24 states. If you aren't willing to pay this extra fee in the first month of service, don't bother going with Avalara. I don't recommend it.

The reports and it is very user friendly

The responses to ticket tend to be oversimplified

Overall experience is very good. No more need to maintain thousands of jurisdictions in the ERP system, no more need to run sales reports by state to check thresholds.

It is all automated once you have it set up correctly.

The integration was a bit difficult considering the model of our business.

It would be impossible to correctly charge tax and file in the various states where we now have "economic nexus" without Avalara, so Avalara has been indespensible. However, they have completely ignored my suggestions for improvements for over 4 years. We need them, but I hope they get better at the certificate capture part of the business.

Certcapture provides the ability to create a campaign to email or fax customers for whom exempt certificates are required, and it makes it easy for them to supply the certificate(s). It is also simple to followup with those that did not initially respond. For daily use, the Walk me Through help feature, and the great wealth of help articles and FAQs, make it easy to find the answer to any questions.

CertCapture allows you to select an Exempt Reason that isn't valid for the state of the certificate. Avalara knows it isn't a valid reason, but it lets you select it anyway, and doesn't give you an error. After you finish validating the certificate and saving it, you can then look at a "History" tab and there you will see an API Call Failed error which if you research you'll find out the reason. But why set the user up for failure? Another issue: how is it useful to allow only the last PO number to be used for a single-use certificate, but at the same time allow multiple PO numbers to be saved? That’s also setting people up to fail! The Avalara University videos on Certcapture do not mention that only the last PO number saved is effective. The “Walk me through” feature doesn’t either. The field says “PO Numbers” and allows multiple PO Numbers to be saved, but it doesn’t actually work. The only way someone could learn that the field that says PO Numbers really means PO Number is by having orders they expected to be exempt be taxed, then have customers complain when they are not. Avatax should validate the selected Exempt Reason, and check all the PO numbers listed for a certificate and exempt orders with PO numbers that match any of them. I've told them this, but instead of “That’s a good idea, I’m going to forward your idea to our product development team and see if we can get it implemented.” they say “the software is working as designed.”

Avalara is such a great company overall to work with. Specifically since we started using Avalara for our tax processing, we've had some setbacks in getting our invoicing in the ERP system we use to process at a rate that was sustainable. The Avalara tax calculation software add-on in our ERP system was what was causing the slowness, and thanks to Avalara's constant engagement and support, within 6 months of kicking off a new development project with their software partners for this add-on, we completed development, testing, and went live with a rapid invoice generation tool. Just one example of how great their support of customers is.

Avalara is invested in the success of their customers. Every time there is an issue with the software (which is incredibly rare) they let us know something is wrong before we even report odd behavior. When we have technical issues that can't be resolved through standard support, they quickly engage and facilitate developers to get things fixed as fast as possible. Even if there are billing problems, we get stellar support in resolving them. Though we have had such a great experience working with Avalara, even when there are these various types of expected issues along the way, they are always there 110% to make our experience enjoyable. We couldn't ask for a better partner.

Due to the ERP solution we use, there are times when the Avalara add-on functionality is a bit cumbersome. Avalara is aware of this and does what they can to accommodate the needs of their customers despite software setbacks caused by our other solutions. It is a notable con, but not even really their fault.

ST filing on the client's behalf....if it captures the correct data.

The concept of Avalara is good...calculate sales tax based on ship to address, file returns for various states. Avalara is the ST experts so internal knowledge does not have to be CPA level.

Every time you save, email, update sales rep or make any change to an invoice in QBO, you get charged for using the program (even if it's not impacting the $ amt or ST), items were all being charged tax regardless of how the item is setup (resolved in Mar18), Customer support is very useless until you can get to tier2 or engineers when you have a REAL problem, program bug resolution is very slow (still waiting on resolution to invoices that Avalara decided to update tax on invoice after the ST was filed and "should have been" locked, and countless others. The accounting partner team is the only group that has been helpful in getting anything resolved or fixed. Unfortunately, they cannot resolve back end issues. I've given them many chances to resolve my clients' issue. Avalara charges for estimates that are generated in QBO (no option to not be charged). Then if you use another 3rd party program that feeds invoices to QBO, your invoices have the Avatax verbiage from the estimate on them. If your invoice is not "resaved" in Avalara then the tax portion will properly be billed to the client but will not show up in Avatax console unless you re-save the documents. As an Advanced QB ProAdvisor who works with multiple companies and 3rd party programs, I would recommend to use caution if using a 3rd party program with QBO and Avalara.

CertCapture is probably the best part of their solution, which is the management of exemption certificates.

Looking back at what I paid for and what I received (and didn't) and the stress that I endured through the process, I definitely would have looked elsewhere. Implementation was confusing and difficult, and their support was non-existent most times. Employee turnover seemed to be common during my implementation, which led to frustration. Lots of different programs (Avatax, certcapture, business registrations, tax filings) that are not well connected and very confusing, and this is super important and caused me many, many hours of unnecessary time. During implementation I had 3-4 different employees that were trying to as quickly as possible on-board me. Need a meeting with someone, good luck, there's no phone number for anyone. Even my ERP implementation consultant who had an 'in' with Avalara had a difficult time receiving support. From my experience, it was difficult to find anyone in the organization that was engaged and supportive in insuring the success of my business start up from a taxation standpoint. My account manager that was supposed to be my advocate, rarely responded to messages and was the least helpful of anyone. Have a tax question, or anything that could be construed as a tax question, they won't answer it. I paid for professional plus support, which as I later determined was for after implementation support, however despite an 8hr stated response time to questions, my experienced showed that I received a response well past the stated response time.

Avalara definitely saves time and money by automating the sales tax. As well as keeps us in compliance, as I could not keep track of the sales tax we owe in every state when tax rates continually change.

You don't have to think about it. Once you get it set up, it runs smoothly on its own and only requires a monthly review to tie out to your GL. Having Avalara remit sales tax on my behalf is a great option.

The software works great. We have had issues with the Cert Capture add on. Which can be very confusing to use. Also setting up reminders on the cert capture side is challenging, and the email directly to customers from Cert Capture is a confusing process for both the administrators and the customers receiving the requests. I would also like additional stability with our customer rep. We are on our 4th customer rep in about 18 months. Along with changing reps, our contract is not reviewed and we have been overcharged. This last fall our overcharging went on for about 4 months and then took another 3 months to get the cash/credits back from Avalara. I also would like Avalara to have a better integration with Amazon. I end up having to import Amazon transactions into Avalara every month, with is always a challenge.

I can't even begin to explain how upset I am with Avalara and the position they put my company in. The program I was enrolled in called Returns for Small Business apparently shut down sometime in November, and our business was never notified. I was completely locked out of my account without any notice. I could not see any data on past returns filled and what was due. I attempted to reach out to multiple people to figure out what had happened and got no clarity. After going through all my account to make sure everything was in order, I discovered that all my returns for the last three quarters of 2023 had been filed with a $0 sales tax liability. The had deducted ALL of my sales as non-taxable. Not only did I have to go back and amend over 50 tax returns, I owed thousands in penalties and late fees. I am disputing all my Avalara invoices during that time as I was paying for a complete fraud of a service. I will also be reporting this as paid tax preparer fraud.

Nothing, they are way better options out there.

Horrible customer service, and I would not trust them to file returns for you.

Avalara calculated the sales tax for all of the jurisdictions in Colorado where we sold our on-line products. It made it very simple to do the sales tax returns in those jurisdictions.

It was very easy to install it with our e-commerce platform and it worked well. The reports were easy to run and use to file the necessary returns with the original version that we started with in 2018.

When they upgraded to the latest version of AVAtax, it became less user friendly to get reports that were needed. It took special training to find the reports needed and they were more cumbersome to use for filing taxes.

Avalara works. It integrates with my e-commerce system and provides customers with accurate, real-time sales tax rates. It allows me to file my sales tax returns easily.

My net pricing to use the software is increasing at an exponential rate. Over my last three renewals, Avalara has passed through annual net price increases of of 38%, 42%, and 110%. Currently, my annual usage fee to Avalara is greater than my annual sales tax liability! This doesn't work for me any longer. Additionally, my account rep changes at least once a year and the current one is not as responsive as I would like.

Honestly, I would not be in business if I operated this way.

I think this package has great potential, but onboarding meetings were "no shows", we have had this package for a year and are still not implemented. When I asked for a refund of the final month...keep in mind...we paid for 12, the politely said no. Just disappointed that they did not have the capacity to onboard us in an efficient manner and then to not offer any concessions for their inability to have people available to help with onboarding.

Very poor onboarding. WE attempted to schedule with several different specialists who would not show up for appts. When they did they were productive, but just dissapointing.

The ease of entering, return submission, and access of the final return.

That EVERYTHING is a cost and nothing is all encompassing. From the customer service to the number of transactions/returns you have, each on eis a cost and it's not cheap

Helping us to be compliant in tax reporting.

There were too many steps to upload certificates, but that has been resolved with Avalara streamlining with Avatax. I don't like that it does not work well with our software, it's still a lot of manual manipulations, however, it's just our software.

Lots of time saved, peace of mind regarding rates charged and filings.

The website is fairly easy to use once you get used to it, including the Avatax and Avacerts websites. Integration was relatively painless with Netsuite and was mostly handled by the Avalara team. No having to worry about rates being correct. With the filing service no having to worry about tax filings.

The software is fairly expensive, and there are no like-for-like alternatives on the market. Some of the tier breaks are strange (specifically with the certificate capturing portion). Doing a few things isn't as intuitive as it could be, such as taxing a regularly exempt customer one time on a specific order.

As with most Bigcommerce integrations, setup was super easy. Signing up for an account and a couple clicks and you're good to go. Calculating sales tax/setup on the backend of an online store can be time-consuming if you don't have Avalara. I do not use the software to do any tax return prep or reports so the version I use is completely free. You can't beat free for a no hassle sales tax calculation experience. State laws change and it's nice to have software that keeps my stores up to code.

I cannot think of any cons to the software. It is free and truly takes the hassle out of calculating state sales tax for all my customers. If you are looking for a software to take care of all of your sales tax needs, such as reporting, you might be able to find cheaper alternatives.

This headache is almost entirely outsourced to specialist. We concentrate on our core business instead.

Once implemented, it is simple to use both for the administrators and our customers. AvaTax has covered a wide gamut of situations that my business presents. The software itself is thorough no matter what jurisdiction or product/service is sold and the product help desk is quick, user friendly and complete.

The integration with our ERP software and e-commerce website yields a frequent rounding issue on the customers' invoices. Not blaming AvaTax for the issue, but neither AvaTax nor our ERP have the flexibility to address the problem.