Avalara CEO Scott McFarlane Defines How Company Offerings Address Market Challenges, Integrate with Dynamics365
In this Executive Interview, which took place at Community Summit NA 2024, Cam Sessinger speaks with Scott McFarlane, CEO, Avalara, to discuss how the company’s offerings assist with commonly faced challenges in the world of tax compliance, integrate with D365 ERPs, and Avalara’s differentiation in the market.
Key Takeaways
- Addressing market challenges: Sales tax, despite its long-standing history, remains a complex and unsolved issue due to its transactional nature and the need for real-time calculation. Avalara addresses this by simplifying the process, handling the intricacies of varying tax rates across jurisdictions and different products, and offering solutions for sales tax, use tax, exemptions, and returns. Its goal is to make sales tax less taxing and more relaxing for businesses.
- What Avalara brings to the table: Sales tax can be time-consuming and risky when done manually, but Avalara’s automated solution, AvaTax, simplifies the process, reducing costs and minimizing audit risks. A survey showed that businesses spend about $17,000 a month on sales tax, but Avalara’s solution offers a quicker payback and less hassle. This makes it a win-win for companies, providing significant benefits at a lower cost.
- Market differentiation: Avalara, founded in 2004, started as an underdog in the cloud-based sales tax solution space and has since grown to be a leader and disruptor in the industry. It offers comprehensive solutions for sales tax aggregation and filing, partnering with various platforms and handling transactions globally, with 41,000 customers and nearly 100 billion transactions annually.
- Integration with D365: Manual sales tax processing in ERP systems is labor-intensive and risky, but Avalara’s solution offers a quick, automated alternative that integrates with Microsoft products. This innovation simplifies sales tax, use tax, exemptions, and invoicing, making it easier for businesses to comply with international mandates and reducing the burden on companies.
