Commenco removes costly guesswork from quotes

Commenco is Kansas City’s largest authorized Motorola Solutions dealer, specializing in digital two-way radio sales, service, and rentals; voice and data capture networks; 9-1-1 service equipment and maintenance; mobile scanners and printers; wireless infrastructure; broadband wireless applications; and closed-circuit video surveillance.

After nearly 60 years in business, Commenco was still relying on its sellers to calculate sales tax for quotes and proposals. Whenever those calculations proved incorrect, the company ended up eating the difference, losing revenue, and irritating customers.

When Mike Markham joined Commenco in late 2015, he was tasked with starting a new division to manage technology products and services for industrial businesses. He soon implemented ConnectWise for quotes and proposals, but he was still running into issues when calculating sales tax. 

“We sell all over the country, and in certain areas we have tax obligations, while in other areas we don’t.” says Mike. “We had a couple of situations where customers were upset because the sales tax ended up being significantly different from what was in the proposal.”

After consulting with the folks at ConnectWise, Mike decided to bring Avalara AvaTax into the mix. Avalara has prebuilt connectors for ConnectWise that integrate with Commenco’s new tech environment and automatically apply sales tax.

Commenco began implementing AvaTax in late 2016 and was ready to go by early 2017. “The implementation was simple,” Mike recalls. “I had to make a few configuration decisions, but most of the work happened in the background, between ConnectWise and Avalara. Other than a short amount of training, I really didn’t have to do a whole lot. It took a couple of weeks, and we were off and running.”

Commenco uses Avalara to calculate sales tax expectations on quotes and proposals, freeing the sales force from potentially costly guesswork. “I want it to be accurate, and that’s not something that I want our salespeople spending time on,” says Mike.

AvaTax has eliminated material surprises for Commenco, providing more accurate, consistent, and all-inclusive quotes. “It’s easy,” says Mike. “It’s not something I really have to think about anymore. And that’s certainly not the case with every software provider I’ve worked with.”