Armanino delivers peace of mind on 1099s

Armanino is one of the largest independent accounting firms in the United States. The firm has more than 12,000 clients that rely on business outsourcing services (BOS), offloading day-to-day and year-end bookkeeping and reporting functions to the Armanino team. While the firm’s BOS team numbers about 400, a core group of just six specialists manages most 1099 preparation and filing, thanks to the Avalara 1099 & W-9 automated solution.

For business owners (and the firms that serve their tax needs), January can be a challenging month due to the January 31 deadline to prepare and file “information returns” such as 1099s.

The current threshold is quite low: A business that pays certain contractors and payees an aggregate of $600 or more (each) over the course of the year must file a 1099 for each individual contractor and payee. That means the number of returns can quickly add up, particularly for larger businesses. Other requirements complicate matters further:

• If a business doesn’t have the right information to complete a 1099, a W-9 must be sent to the contractor or payee to collect details such as the Taxpayer Identification Number. 
• 1099s must be sent to the contractor or payee in addition to filing with the IRS.
• Any entity that files 10 or more 1099s is required to file electronically — a complex process on its own.

It’s no wonder businesses count on firms like Armanino to manage it all for them; not only is dealing with 1099s and W-9s a hassle, there are fines and penalties for noncompliance. And it’s why Armanino relies on Avalara to streamline the process. After all, 1099 obligations are difficult enough for an individual business; handling them for thousands of clients manually would be a nightmare.

Before implementing Avalara 1099 & W-9, Armanino used different systems and procedures across its 20+ offices. “We thought, ‘We can make this better,’” says Max Langfield, a member of the BOS team at Armanino who specializes in 1099 compliance. “[Standardizing the process] can free up our client delivery team, and they can provide a more white-glove service, while us in the back end are handling this relatively mundane administrative task.”

That significantly increased productivity and efficiency, cutting processing time in half — with automation, each filing takes just 15–30 minutes, according to Tyler DeWitt, a senior consultant at the firm. The change saved hundreds of hours nearly immediately, prompting Armanino to adopt the Avalara solution across the company. “Our automation would go for about 20 hours a day, but we were not working 20 hours,” Tyler says. “So while we’re off, we can still keep processing these 1099s.”

Tyler says the flexibility of Avalara 1099 & W-9 is its greatest feature, making data input and output faster and more accurate even for business clients using antiquated bookkeeping systems. If the client’s system can output to an Excel or .csv file, that file can easily be imported into Avalara. (The solution can directly import from most newer ERP, accounting, and online sales systems.)

Max adds that he often hears from businesses who have used other solutions lacking the capabilities of Avalara — and that clients are grateful for the newfound speed and reliability. “They come to us overwhelmed by this burden, and we’re able to take it off their hands,” he says. “You can see their relief.”

Avalara customer service is another key benefit, according to Tyler: “If we have a problem where something isn’t behaving as intended, or I need clarification on a notice, I’ll message or email — and I hear back within an hour at the most.”

Today, thanks to the power of automation, Armanino needs just a core team of six staffers to handle tens of thousands of 1099s for clients — 76,000+ forms for more than 4,000 clients in 2025 alone. Tyler says more than half of the 1099 templates sent by the firm’s clients in 2025 were able to be validated and filed automatically, without the 1099 team even needing to touch them.

That efficiency and flexibility is going to be even more important in the coming years — for both Armanino and its clients — because IRS requirements keep changing. In just the past few years, the agency has lowered the threshold for reporting payment amounts, reduced the number of forms that trigger the e-filing requirement, and made other revisions. 

One change having a massive impact on online sellers and resellers is the requirement for 1099-Ks, usually associated with online marketplaces, payment apps, and settlement organizations. The trigger amount used to be $20,000, but has dropped to $5,000 and is poised to go even lower: In 2026, it will be $2,500, and some think it could go to $600 in 2027.

It’s vital for businesses (and firms) to stay on top of it all throughout the year, not only when it comes time to file in January — which is why Avalara 1099 & W-9 offers management functions to create a yearlong compliance process.

“The key to making January as easy as possible is to do the work before January, to make sure that all your ducks are in a row prior to getting to that point,” Max says. “We always tell people: If you wait until December, you might be fine, but it’s not guaranteed.”

It’s also key to have the right partner by your side. Armanino and Avalara allow business owners and executives to focus on their business, instead of spending time on administrative tasks like tax compliance. “We’re not going to tell you how to run your business,” Tyler says, “but we will tell you what you need to do to stay compliant — and we’ll take that off your plate.”