Avalara

Pros: The product is user friendly. I don't think i use avalara to its full potential but it does make it very easy to navigate and the fact that they register in states for you, make life so much easier! Reporting is very seamless and their reports are great.

Cons: The instructions for beginners can have a learning curve. There needs to be someone that can give you a demo once you have to register in a state and what all that happens, like reconciling the transactions and such.

Pros: They can file taxes correctly. For the 36-ish months we used them, they filed 32 of them correctly. One was a bug on their end that they neglected to compensate us for.

Cons: Customer service. When our renewal was coming up, I requested pricing and an updated contract. They ignored me. I sent a cancellation notice via the channels they required. They ignored me for over 2 months (until I started posting publicly... like this). They fraudulently withdrew funds via ACH and charged my credit card. Someone from the company contacts me after I post but every interaction fades into the ether and nobody takes responsibility for fixing the problem.

Pros: What I liked most about Avalara is its clear focus on simplifying complex tax compliance processes through automation. The platform is highly reliable, continuously updated with changing tax regulations, and integrates well with various accounting and ERP systems.

Cons: What I liked least about Avalara is that, despite its strong automation capabilities, the platform can sometimes feel complex and not very intuitive for new users.

Pros: they cover all of our sales tax needs regardless of complexity and address any issues in a timely manner

Cons: no issues with the platform and they also are proactive in ensuring no friction even arises throughout the service

Pros: Works great, until it doesn't. When it doesn't, it is very hard to get help. Most of the time, Avalara is great!

Cons: You can't get help, your account executive forwards you elsewhere and you have to send multiple emails for a reply.

Pros: Difficult to use. Can't file 941's online. Customer support if nil. The program doesn't offer much online other than 1099's

Cons: No customer support. Tried canceling my service and had a hard time finding how to go about that. Once the fee went through for another annual use they refused to refund saying it was too late.

Pros: It is an easy to use tool that integrates seamlessly with other accounting systems to help manage sales tax. It gives me confidence that we are staying compliant without having to review every single transaction as they occur. It is very low cost for the amount of value that is provided.

Cons: The communication can be off base sometimes. There can be several false positives of sales tax nexus that you are alerted to that I haven't quite found a way to configure.

Pros: Not much to say here. The idea of it is great, however, execution is lacking. If they could sharpen up their internal processes and filing procedures, I would have much better things to say.

Cons: Poor communication, lack of accountability, and overall not providing the true service you pay for. Their entire purpose is to file tax returns accurately and compliantly, yet our filings were submitted incorrectly and non-compliant. When I raised the issue, the team refused to take responsibility or offer a resolution. I have spoken with many state sales and use tax representatives who also spoke negatively of their own experience with Avalara.

Pros: Avalara easily handles all the sales tax calculations for transactions, and is especially great since it integrates with our ERP system. It saves time in that it is able to automatically identify customers who have tax exemption certificates on file and processes transactions based on valid Tax Exemption Certificates on file that are valid. Avalara processes tax filings and has reporting capability allowing for easily identifying issues with transactions, summarizing monthly sales tax liabilities and managing customers.

Cons: Avalara support and customer interactions is lacking. It appears that that did a lot of investment in their product, but failed to identify the need for actual interaction with customers when they need help. Avalara requires you to use their AI support and knowledge base articles to solve problems, before you can speak to someone about your issue. Their Account Reps appear also, to not have the time to provide communication to their customers, since it is difficult to get an answer timely to questions.

Pros: They’re very good at marketing their services and signing you up — initial communication was fine. The idea behind the service is great, but the execution is terrible.

Cons: I tried Avalara for my small business and found it overpriced and confusing, with multiple hidden charges. The service didn’t work properly, and support was useless — they were supposed to help me seamlessly transition my Shopify orders into Avalara, but it never happened, and I ended up doing everything manually. That wasn’t even the worst part — Avalara failed to file my taxes twice, leaving me with state penalties. I’m not sure what went wrong or why my returns weren’t filed automatically (as they were supposed to be), but the end result was very poor.

Pros: Large, established company with recognizable brand Prebuilt Salesforce package (no need to build from scratch) Basic functionality works for straightforward tax setups

Cons: Support team lacks knowledge for even basic Salesforce mapping issues Pushed to upgrade to costly Technical Account Manager with no added value Long-standing issues remain unresolved (case open for nearly a year) Only solution offered is “upgrade the installed package,” which never fixes the problem Installed package contains locked-down flows, Apex classes, and process builders with errors that admins cannot update

Cons: Very disappointed customer support. Don’t care client at all. Even no proper action after escalated complaint one month ago!

Pros: I like that all of our required sales tax filings are organized into one space. It is clear what is due and when.

Cons: There are often errors in the sales tax calculations on our sales, resulting in incorrect amounts being charged to our customers and further remitted to the government. In addition, we have had a few large issues arise and it seems like their team never takes them seriously. There is always a lot of back and forth and we continually have to remind them that the issues are not resolved.

Pros: A Once it was set up it ran well, until it didn't. It seemed to do the job for the short time that it was running correctly

Cons: Complete disaster for us. Onboarding was a disaster. The expert they gave us had no experience. I had to figure it out and set it up. Then they disconnected the App that integrated with eComm and then never fixed anything. Completely incompetent staff. Indian that had no understanding of anything and very difficult to talk to.

Pros: No pros in using this service it's all horrible and there's precisely 0 things I liked about working with them.

Cons: Horrible customer support, full of unqualified offshore workers. They take your money and run (don't do their job) until they ask for more money to upgrade you to a higher tier to do more of a job they haven't done in the past.

Pros: Extremely helpful in navigating the ins-and-outs of US sales tax. From registering for sales tax in any US State to submitting returns, certificate management and generate reporting.

Cons: It takes a bit to undestand how the system work, especially for non US, but after that it's a walk in the park

Pros: Initially I thought Avalara was nice because it would calculate taxes on our behalf, then I realized the taxes calculated were wrong.

Cons: Customer Support was horrendous and slow. Platform was difficult to navigate at times and it is overpriced.

Pros: Managing taxes in a central dashboard in theory is helpful

Cons: Customer experience is abysmal Incomplete information in ECM module

Pros: Unfortunately, nothing met our expectations.

Cons: Terrible customer service experience, unnecessary state registrations, software incompatibilities, and the associated time and expense.

Pros: Automated sales tax calculations, simplified tax return preparation and review, a lot of articles and training available through Knowledge Center and Enterprise Support.

Cons: Frequent turnover with dedicated account executives and support personnel, expensive. It's difficult to get an accurate, up to date usage/projected future usage to manage account subscriptions. Steep learning curve for new users of Avalara and those newer to sales tax, complexity of configuration with the D365 connector. No way to automate reports to run on a recurring basis, very manual.

Pros: The variety of products, and the ability to customize to individuals.

Cons: Connectivity Issues that created lag time.

Pros: They file the returns for you. Saves lots of time to focus on more analysis. Upload tool is easy to use.

Cons: With Louisiana being a difficult state and where we do most business, they don't have many experts in this area especially with Direct Pay Permits and creating Entity Use Codes especially when new jurisdictions are added. There are alot of reports that do about the same thing just maybe a little tweek so sometimes trying to find the right one is hard.

Pros: Avalara provides information on tax situations throughout the 46 taxing states + District of Columbia. As well as how to use their systems.

Cons: Avalara support for it's software applications.