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[Greg Enns]

We are currently evaluating Avalara’s AvaTax solution and WoltersKluwer’s SureTax solution. There are certainly some differences, but the core functionality is the same.

Have you used or evaluated either/both of these systems? I’d love to hear your thoughts, warnings, issues, regrets, praise…

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Greg Enns
ERP Coordinator
Technical Prospects
Kaukauna WI
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[John Gaither]

?We are looking at these two as well.   Both seem to have the same functionality.  AVALARA has the tax certificate management internal to their organization.  WoltersKluwer’s certificate management program is an external partner.  Not sure it’s a deal breaker but it is another layer of support in theory.

I haven’t had a chance to look yet but there’s also Sales Tax Clearing House, they will keep your tax tables in NAV up to date, and all of the info is just base NAV.   Will be looking at this over the next couple of weeks.

John

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John Gaither
American Art Clay Co
Indianapolis IN
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[Jeffrey Mantz]

The Sales Tax Clearing House sounds like an interesting solution. Some of this decision may depend on where you have Nexus. Some states have tax broken down by municipality, county, etc. Performing tax calculation just by zip code alone is not enough in those cases. You have to go down to the street level.

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Jeffrey Mantz
Vice President
Zefon International
Ocala FL
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[Jeffrey Mantz]

We use the Avalara solution and overall are pretty happy with it. We have had a few bugs but they were fixed in later releases. We are on 2016 so updates are a pain. I am pretty sure starting in 2018 they use extensions.

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Jeffrey Mantz
Vice President
Zefon International
Ocala FL
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[Karin Cole]

Hello Greg,

We began using Avalara in 2016.  There process works, but the set-up in NAV is critical.  Their contract is not inexpensive (I don’t know how they compare to SureTax).  They seem to be proactive regarding the “new” sales tax criteria and the nexus implications.  The landscape is getting tough to keep up with and navigate through.  

Does SureTax offer a Nexus Study as well?

Regards,
Karin

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Karin Cole
Katadyn North America, Inc.
Brooklyn Center MN
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[Kim Dallefeld]

?I used Sure Tax a few years ago and it seemed to be missing some basic functionality that I would have just expected to be included. This was a few years back so the current version could be much improved.

Avalara has definitely had it’s bumps in the last few years but was easy to install and use.

Using a sales tax solution is important if you have sales in many locations and states (ie Nexus). This takes a great deal of pressure from your internal team related to managing the sales tax.

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Kim Dallefeld
Kim@Dallefeld.com
Dallefeld Consulting, LLC
Past NAVUG Board Chairman
NAVUG Programming Committee
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[Andrea Riviezzo]

Hi Greg,
Another Avalara user here – for sure Avalara years ago had bumps in integration with NAV which caused a lot of people to become “angry” with the product. However, they have a new connector out now that is supposed to be much easier to integrate.
For me, Avalara is a full package solution and I don’t worry about much. With Economic Nexus being the new hot thing, turning on states/collecting/remitting is super easy. Even the new Colorado Emergency Ruling they are quickly making something for non-physical filing taxing requirements and ensuring it’s there and easy for anyone selling into Colorado complies without the headaches.
They also do a lot of educational events like their A-List events and Crush conference. They for sure want to educate their customers on sales tax and generally have a good time – which is a funny statement when someone thinks sales tax.

I’m a pretty big fan and possibly biased. 🙂

Good luck in your sales tax compliance software decision!
Andrea

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Andrea Riviezzo
Controller
Inovonics
Louisville CO
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[Michael Heatherly]

Look at Wolters Kluer Sales Tax Office 

Only 10% t0 12% of our transactions are taxable.

As a distributor selling to Mechanical Contractors we needed to have the tax exempt reason codes editable at the order level.

A Mechanical Contractor performing work for a Municipal Waste Water Facility, would be Government Exempt.

The same contractor performing work for a manufacturing company upgrading equipment in a manufacturing process could
be Industrial Machinery and Equipment Exempt.

You can sell to a firm that has plants in multi-state locations.

You could have Direct Pay Permits or Enterprise Zones validating tax exemption. 

In Illinois, Iowa and Kentucky Sales have to be reported under the respective Tax Exempt categories.


Avalara does not support any of the above.
When we were implementing our system, AVAVLARA could not provide a representative that could address any of the above issues.

Their exempt cert support system  only supports a Static Yes or no tax status.

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Michael Heatherly
controller
Lesman Instrument Company
BENSENVILLE IL
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[Mathew Ealy]

We currently use Avatax in our Nav 09 system and are evaluating Avatax & CCH for the upgrade to Nav 18. We have had some issues with Avatax, but we are on a very old version.

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Mathew Ealy
Nav Support Specialist
Rentokil N. America
Reading PA
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[Justin Joerger]

We have built a connector to NAV for Thomson Reuters Sales Tax solution called ONESOURCE. This is a very strong tax product that is fully integrated with NAV from older versions through NAV 2018 and we are currently working on 365BC. You can find more information about their product via the link below. Feel free to reach out to me with any questions about the product or the connector.

ONESOURCE Determination

Thomsonreuters		remove preview
ONESOURCE Determination Stay on top of constantly changing indirect tax rates regardless of your corporation’s size or geographic reach with ONESOURCE Determination. Determine your company’s liability for sales tax, use tax, GST, VAT, excise tax, and other country-specific taxes with the most powerful and flexible tax engine for indirect tax and the only patented, end-to-end automated solution on the market. View this on Thomsonreuters >

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Justin Joerger
Account Manager
Intelice Solutions, LLC
Washington, DC
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[Greg Enns]

Thanks everyone for your input. Here’s what we found through our investigation:
– AvaTax has a more modern look and one or two pieces of functionality that SureTax didn’t (the biggest standout that we saw was the ability to send cert request emails automatically from the AvaTax portal.)
– AvaTax is more accurate in remote areas (i.e. the gravel road down the middle of a farm) because they use Lat/Long whereas SureTax uses Zip+4
– Both systems are regularly upgraded and both on-prem and cloud ready. If they don’t already they’ll very soon have BC compatible add-ons.
– In general, Avalara seemed a little more expensive–but I think it really varies depending on where you have Nexus now and where you think you might in the future. 
– Wolters Kluwer (CCH) was more flexible with pricing arrangements and came with a MUCH cheaper upfront cost (purchase/installation).
– We received negative feedback about both solutions–but Avalara’s feedback generally related to their old connector. The new connector came out this year, so no one has really used it much yet–at least not that we heard from.

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Greg Enns
ERP Coordinator
Technical Prospects
Kaukauna WI
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