Bainbridge Island, WA - August 14, 2007 - Avalara (www.avalara.com), a leading provider of Web-hosted sales tax management services, today announced it has acquired Trustfile (www.trustfile.com). Trustfile, based in Baton Rouge, La., offers software providing a simple, inexpensive solution that automates sales tax e-filing and e-payment within one application. For companies that file in single or multiple states, that have one location or 200, Trustfile’s software offers a simple and inexpensive solution for business filing in the states of Texas, Oklahoma, Minnesota, Iowa, Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and Wisconsin. Trustfile processes approximately US $8 billion on business tax payments annually for its 6,000 customers.

While Avalara already offers a comprehensive sales tax solution—including a Managed Returns Service, allowing businesses to fully outsource returns preparation and remittance of sales taxes to the states—the acquisition will accelerate Avalara’s delivery of e-filing capabilities and will allow Avalara to more quickly grow the compliance area of its business. As one of only three Certified Service Providers for the Streamlined Sales Tax (SST) Project, Avalara currently offers e-filing for customers in states participating in SST. The Trustfile acquisition will allow Avalara to leverage existing technology to transport electronic returns for customers within the states that are not currently part of SST. Currently, 38 states offer e-filing options while 13 states mandate it. The acquisition will also allow Avalara to continue to accelerate enhancements to its AvaTax product and reach a broader audience of businesses that are already outsourcing a small piece of their sales and use tax compliance.

The acquisition will bring Avalara’s customer count to 20,000 and make it the largest e-filing sales tax vendor, processing more than 17,000 sales tax payments a month, and will further empower Avalara to continue to revolutionize and make more efficient the way companies remit sales and use tax to individual states by offering them a single source for sales and use tax remittance. Historically, inefficiencies in these processes occurred due to the fact that the remittance of sales and use tax varies from state to state and have proven themselves burdensome for businesses. Whether individual states require electronic remittance (such as Connecticut and New Jersey) or don’t offer electronic filing options at all (such as Missouri and Michigan), Avalara eliminates that burden by providing companies with the technology that allows them to remit to a single location rather than each state in which they have nexus.

In the near future, it is a certainty that states will require people to file electronically, which is evident in the way that some states have already begun mandating electronic filing. To accommodate this mandate, various tools are being created, such as Web sites for states that no longer offer paper returns, which is known as a “soft mandate.” Also, some states have started to penalize businesses that don’t e-file because the elimination of paper is helping states dramatically reduce clerical errors caused by inaccurate keying and is reducing costs brought about by expensive scanning methods.

The work done by both companies is highly complementary and will provide additional value to customers. Avalara has expanded its resources in connecting to front-end accounting systems; Trustfile has focused on connecting states and back-end processes to manage data. The combination of the front end with the back will grow e-filing capabilities into a primary electronic, third-generation, powerful and complete end-to-end solution.

“While the acquisition of Trustfile will be extremely beneficial to existing and future customers of both companies, it will also play a key role in helping Avalara incorporate the new technology required to help us further the overall vision that Avalara has for the industry,” said Scott McFarlane, CEO of Avalara. “Avalara customers will benefit from new product offerings while Trustfile customers can continue to rely on the same great e-filing solutions they have come to trust.”

King Woolf III, president of Trustfile, is also enthusiastic about the acquisition. “We look forward to working closely with the Avalara team,” he said. “By combining our collective years of experience, our technologies and the knowledge we’ve acquired by working closely with our customers, Avalara is taking a large step toward providing a fully automated, real time, end-to-end solution from the point of sale to electronic filing and payment, streamlining a cumbersome process for millions of businesses.”

About AvaTax™
An SMB market-leading, Web-service-based sales tax solution, AvaTax instantly and accurately calculates sales tax for clients in any of the more than 12,500 tax regions in North America; provides detailed, real-time reporting; and automatically generates pre-populated sales tax returns. Currently, more than 10,000 licensed AvaTax users run an average of five to seven sales tax calculation transactions through Avalara’s sales tax engine every second. AvaTax comes integrated with SMB financial applications serving more businesses than any other solution on the market today, including Microsoft Dynamics GP, Microsoft Dynamics NAV, Microsoft Dynamics AX, Intuit’s QuickBooks, Sage Software’s Sage MAS 90 ERP, Sage MAS 200 ERP, Sage MAS 500 ERP, and Sage Accpac ERP. Additionally, with AvaTax On-Demand™ developers can integrate Avalara’s sales tax Web service with any e-commerce, third party or custom-build solution with use of a comprehensive Software Developer’s Kit (SDK).

About Avalara
Headquartered on Bainbridge Island near Seattle, Washington, Avalara is changing the sales tax landscape by delivering innovative and affordable solutions to small and mid-sized businesses. Avalara’s mission is to transform the sales tax compliance process by creating cost-effective, state-of-the-art solutions. Avalara does so through integrated, on demand, Web-based services that provide transparent transactions, accurate tax compliance, painless administration and effortless reporting.

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For more information about Avalara, contact:
Andrea Anderson, Director of Marketing
Office: 206-780-7008