Cost Containment Advisors takes on larger compliance clients with Avalara Property Tax for Accountants

Cost Containment Advisors (CCA) specializes in assisting taxpayers in fixed-asset-intensive industries to ensure the accurate assessment of property taxes, and define and manage tax exposure. The firm serves energy, pipeline, mining, airport flight services, and waste management clients across 36 states.

CCA started onboarding two new clients that had 300+ locations in 23 states and realized it had reached a point where Excel spreadsheets and PDFs were no longer enough.

“CCA started as strictly an advisement or consulting firm,” said Gregg West, Senior Director with primary responsibility for tax compliance and advisement. “What we found is that some clients were looking for full-service property tax compliance…. We were losing clients due to a lack of sufficient compliance service options. The answer for us was bringing on some kind of compliance application that would enhance our capabilities.”

For CCA, the decision to go with Avalara Property Tax for Accountants over competitor solutions came down to cost, user-friendly application design, and user support.

Initially, CCA was a little hesitant due to the newness of the Avalara Property Tax for Accountants solution relative to other compliance products in the market. “I think the biggest hurdle for us was getting familiar and getting comfortable,” said Gregg.

As CCA started to review the Avalara Property Tax for Accountants solution via conversations and demos, Gregg came to a realization: “The cost was very comparable [to other solutions],” he explained. “And what we found was that we were getting more for our money.”

CCA realized it could use Avalara Property Tax for Accountants to offer clients a “best practices audit” as a value-add with its advisory services while simplifying client document data entry and improving data accuracy. “The OCR (optical character recognition) component is quite impressive with its accurate handling of multiple document types,” said Gregg. OCR is a core technology used to automate the extraction of data from property tax documents. It dramatically reduces the need for manual data entry, saving time and reducing errors for businesses.

CCA had an ambitious implementation schedule of 2-3 months, which Avalara was able to accommodate.

“Another noticeable difference between Avalara and other providers is the ‘Help Application’,” said Gregg. “Also the recorded implementation sessions and links to implementation notes have been quite helpful and unique compared to past experiences.”