Avalara Reviews

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.

Tax calculates correctly, unless the API is down of course.

It is impossible to receive an answer from the support team regarding billing. For a month now I've been trying to understand the 4x price increase we received after almost 10 years. There was no explanation on the renewal notice. Submitted a support case online, no response for a week. Called, spoke to a person, 48 hours later my case was closed with information unrelated to my case. They also called me by another name.

The company, as a whole, was founded on making a tedious and oftentimes overwhelming regular process, as seamless as possible. I implemented Avalara, many years ago, in another company and could not have been more pleased with the service. DAVO integrates very simply into the POS of our restaurants and helps hold the sales tax liabilities outside of our operating accounts so that the monthly sales tax payments don't cut our reserves, like they used to.

The contact that I had with Avalara, in the past, featured amazing customer service. I worry that with DAVO they have taken on another "leg" of business that is not as customer service focused. I very much miss the interaction that I believe other customers get when using the Avalara product.

AVA TAX it can help business easily calculate muti-states' sales tax and generate tax report. Sales tax rate is up-to-date.

ECM Pro need to connect with state tax ID lookup system

Sales tax has become a hot issue and a difficult one to navigate. Avalara is a huge help in managing the process and despite a few flaws, it's pretty invaluable. Saves so much time and effort

Difficult to set up and when it is not working as expected it can get in the way of processing documents.

The products are easy to use. We have had good luck with most.

Customer Service is lacking when we need assistance.

I like that Avalara keeps up with the tax rates and automatically updates customers without having to do it manually.

I have no complaints. It does the job we need and does it well.

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.

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.

Easy to Use: The platform is user-friendly and integrates well with other systems.
Comprehensive: It handles various tax tasks like calculation, filing, and certificate management.
Accurate: Avalara keeps up with tax laws to ensure accurate tax calculations.
Scalable: It works well for businesses of all sizes.

Cost: Avalara can be expensive, especially for small businesses.
Complex Setup: Initial setup and integration can be complex and time-consuming.
Customer Support: Some users report that customer support can be slow or not as helpful as expected.
Updates and Changes: Frequent updates and changes can sometimes disrupt workflows and require additional adjustments.

I like the ease of access and the ease of setup that comes with Avalara. It makes it a breeze to automate sales tax within your business.

None what so ever. We have enjoyed Avalara and we have had no issues since implementing it in our business.

It was available in the hosting environment we had

Their customer service is awful. They close claim tickets without even working with you to fix the problem. When you do get a zoom meeting you never talk with the same person twice so you have to start over. They point the blame to other platforms you use as the source of your problem. Some of our issue have gotten worse by the fixes that their customer service reps have implemented to fix other issues.

They are experts in sales tax filings and constantly improving

nothing so far and hopefully will stay the same

Avalara is very user friendly, and makes it easy to collect & remit the correct sales tax. The various reports available on the portal are very helpful to ensure we remain in compliance. I also really appreciate all of the education and resources available, I have found all of the available webinars and articles extremely helpful.

The Support case/Tax Notice process could be improved- cases close automatically after a response is provided by Avalara support, and it can be challenging to have follow-up questions addressed after the case is closed.

Accuracy of rates with pinpoint locator - the use of latitude & longitude id great

Some times finding a specific question seems to be missing, but this is rare

I like the ease of use for a small biz and an owner wearing all the hats and juggling all the customers balls.

I don't like the headquarters, it was right next to my apt in Seattle.

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

Avalara makes it much easier to collect sales tax across many different states.

The integration with QuickBooks online is glitchy. Frequently gets errors and you must refresh. Also, it would be nice if the integration didn't add a line item and instead put the sales tax next to the subtotal.

*Interface with Netsuite
*Management reports available for month REC
*Driven by strong Tax knowledge and customer awareness.

*Website is still not what it should be regarding ease of use.
*Resent changes in how support is handled may produce cost saving however it may be at the expense of customer need for timely response. In the past I suspect customers contacted support only after giving up on attempts to gain intel from the website.... may not be pleased having to wait longer.
Avalara does not file at all on exception bases amended returns when clients want to recover over payment of tax. Stop giving orange colored glasses at workshop. Do not thing many tax nerds will wear them but grand child did. Orange unbrella's were pretty bold, Orange water bottles were a hit. It appears that Vertex still does much more advertising when logging into Netsuite than Vertex. Baseball game, Stadium walk troughs were big hits and provided a clear time frame in which to cover material. Golfing may have been exciting to those who tried, I saw more than a handful leaving as soon as presentation was over. I sensed a strong desire to finish material ASAP,which may have limited good discussions.

Given above, I remain one of your best cheerleaders, Mo should be able to confirm this. Thanks for the opportunity to provide feedback.

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.