Mid-market Businesses Have Better Tax Options Thanks to Avalara and Epicor Alliance
By Susan J. Campbell
TMCnet Contributing Editor
Paying taxes has never been easier for the corporation – to the chagrin of the corporation – thanks to a partnership that has been formed between sales tax technology provider Avalara and Epicor Software Corporation, a provider of enterprise business software solutions to the global mid-market.
Epicor plans to integrate and offer Avalara’s full line of sales tax solutions, which includes Avalara’s innovative Web services-based sales tax automation solution, along with Epicor’s suite of enterprise resource planning (ERP) applications.
Jared Vogt, CEO of Avalara noted that sales tax administration and compliance presents an ongoing operational and audit burden to most organizations. Based on Web services technology along with a central management console, Avalara offers a full-service sales tax solution that customers will be able to deploy on-premise or in an on-demand, hosted environment.
As a result of the alliance, Epicor will offer all of Avalara’s products and services as well as link AvaTax™, Avalara’s Web-based sales tax automation service, with Epicor’s end-to-end, industry-specific enterprise solutions for manufacturing, distribution, retail, hospitality and services. The new integration is positioned as providing an accurate, automated system for calculating tax in real-time, across the thousands of North American taxing jurisdictions with every transaction.
According to John Hiraoka, senior vice president and chief marketing office of Epicor, this partnership will enable Epicor to continue a successful track record of finding ways to help its customers use automation to improve accuracy and the ongoing costs of compliance.
Hiraoka went on to add that by streamlining the burden of sales tax compliance, customers will save data entry time, better leverage their existing IT resources and minimize the chances of costly tax audits with the goal of increasing accuracy and productivity levels throughout the process.
Ranjit Mulgaonkar, vice president of business development and product marketing at Avalara, contributed that Avalara is pleased to align with Epicor to augment its solutions to the mid-market. Epicor has a reputation in the industry for its ability to deliver innovative enterprise business software solutions.
Mulgaonkar considers the alliance to be a natural and beneficial partnership where both companies serve the same type of customers – those who need affordable, dependable, accurate, productivity-saving technology to strengthen their operations.
One of the biggest challenges that organizations face in trying to maintain optimal productivity and efficiency levels is adhering to requirements and regulations placed upon them either by the government or other organizations commissioned by the government. And, paying taxes is one assured element in business – it must be done.
Avalara and Epicor have responded to a need by partnering to offer their services to the mid-market. Businesses that fit this category must comply with all the regulations of the larger corporations, but within stricter budgets. This alliance is providing a way for these businesses to easily comply without dedicating too much time, money and personnel to the business of calculating proper tax amounts. The potential savings in time and money for these corporations is significant and worth investigating.
Susan J. Campbell is a contributing editor for TMC and has also written for eastbiz.com. To see more of her articles, please visit Susan J. Campbell’s columnist page.