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621 Avalara Reviews
Overall Review Sentiment for Avalara
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What they said they would solve, but actually they made everything worse. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
First, the product: AvaTax doesn't work well. Avalara clearly doesn't care about maintaining an excellent product with their QBO integration. We had tax calculations change after we sent the invoice to a client, even though we didn't change anything on the invoice. Most recently, Avalara has failed to support an update the QBO rolled out, and now tax calculations tax 3-5 minutes to calculate... what a huge waste of time? You want to create an invoice, and then send it to your customer, right? Nope, create that invoice... sit around for 3-5 minutes, make sure the sales tax shows up, then send it. Absolutely horrible.
Next, the service: Avalara's support is the worst I've experienced, of any company, ever. We paid for a higher level of support, and we were assigned an Account Manager. Our Avalara Account Manager will not respond to me unless I send at least 3 emails. Average response time is 8 days. Technical support is worthless as well. They just tell you what you already can see in the AvaTax dashboard and will not help you find meaningful answers. If your ticket gets escalated, be prepared to spend 4-5 hours showing Avalara how you QA'd their product and found their bug, and then once you've proven to them, multiple times, that the bug exists, they might just fix it.
Finally, the price: Avalara will automatically upgrade you to higher usage tiers without your permission. They will charge exorbitant "Upgrade Fees". Because their QBO integration is so bad, you end up having to use 3x the usage you expected, which then costs you 3x what you expected. We literally paid more because their product was worse than expected. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
The usage of Avalara and AvaTax saves us time. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
The time consuming process when registring in a new state after you hit Nexus. Lack of specific advise and answering questions for specific states. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
It's simple to use and uderstand. I can have peace of mind that my returns are filed properly. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
Support is not the best and they sometimes have billing issued that take a lot of time to receive credit or have them solved. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
Once Avalara is set up and configured, it is a virtually hands-off solution to sales tax calculation, collection, and filing. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
The biggest drawback to Avalara is "one-size-fits-all" nature of their model. The set up for a very small company is not much different from a large organization. If you situation does not fit in their box, you might run into difficulties at times that require a hand-holding solution. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
Avalara takes all the guess work out of sales tax. We've integrated with three different systems so far and have been super simple to get started. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
The price is on a the high side, but if you can afford it, it's completely worth it. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
I like how Avalara is so customizable. I am able to create scenarios and profiles unique to the business and customers. It is very user friendly and release all new state data necessary for return filing. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
Avalara sometimes can be slow during filing times. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
UPDATE: Avalara Customer Care reached out on 7/1 and offered a conversation to help address the issue (see comment below). I reached out that same day to follow up -- and have received NO response (or follow up response from their Customer Success team). Sadly, this illustrates my point -- its frustrating to be a net promoter of a great technology, but unable to recommend the company due to unacceptably poor Customer Service. Avalara has solved the hard tech issues...however, they need to sort our their customer support & customer success functions, which have been MIA for the past year.
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Avalara helps you manage your complex tax nexus by caculating sales tax and filing sales tax returns. It integrates nicely with quickbooks and their sales & implementation teams were terrific. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
Thier customer support doesn't exist. Sadly, customer success is overloaded and doens't respond to emails. Support tickets to address simple billing issues go unanswered (after almost 2 months)...and you're never actually able to speak with someone...unless you're patient enough to wait 45 days to get a 10-min slot on your customer success reps calendar.
I'm by nature an Avalara Net Promoter, but they've unwisely spent their equity with me as a champion for their product by wasting my time trying to solve simple issues. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
My favorite feature on Avalara is the AvaTax Returns! It makes return filing so effortless for our small team of 2. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
The customer service support can be a little slow at times, but they ensure that the cases are resolved appropriately. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
How fun they made tax rules and compliance with educational events, their customer ambassador program, etc. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
Sometimes many of the compliance decisions although there should not be "grey area" per say, it often comes down to a decision of the business owner, the software will always only do so much. --However that's appropriate and most likely a positive at times. Sometimes, you just wish they could tell you a little more EXACTLY what to do. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
I really appreciate the scalability and customization of all of Avalara's solutions. Fom Avatax to MRA, Avalara realizes its diverse needs of its users and does its best to cater to those needs through all of its solutions' functions. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
My only compliant would be some of the support that I have received has not been of the quality that Avalara's products can provide. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.