Customer story

JL Marine Systems finds calm waters with sales tax automation

Results

Improved processes
Managed exemptions

Summary

Results

  • Improved processes
  • Managed exemptions

Tax challenges

  • Company growth
  • Exemption management
  • Disparate systems



Products used

Avalara AvaTax
Dynamically delivers sales and use tax calculations, based on the latest rules and rates in our tax engine, to a shopping cart or invoicing system at the time of purchase.

Avalara CertCapture
A highly scalable solution to securely collect, store, and manage tax documents in the cloud and automate exemptions at checkout.

Avalara Returns
Automatically gathers data from AvaTax to prepare and file sales and use tax returns and remit payments across multiple jurisdictions every filing cycle.


Benefits

  • Saving finance team 5–10 hours per week managing sales tax
  • Adding states with ease
  • Easy management of exemption certificates and capture at point of sale

Industry type

Manufacturing
Meet customer needs and stay compliant when you’re collecting sales tax or exemption certificates.

Company overview


Customer
JL Marine Systems

Industry
Manufacturing

Tax type
Sales and use

Integration
Everest Software, Magento

Tampa-based JL Marine Systems started out making shallow-water anchors, then expanded to include tools that manage all onboard accessories and power. Channels to market include an outside sales team, boat manufacturers (OEMs), national retailers, boat dealers, and the company’s own ecommerce-enabled website.

Tax challenges


JL Marine’s systems were not optimized for their explosive growth in transactions, channels, and nexus obligations. The company calculated sales tax using Everest Software, its ERP system, and filed tax returns directly with the state of Florida, but found that workload unsustainable in the face of a large upsurge in business, especially online.

CFO Jean Treimanis had worked as the company’s outside accountant since 2005, joining JL Marine full time in 2013. “I came on board during a massive sales tax audit by the state of Florida,” she recalls. “Missing exemption certificates were a huge issue, and we got hit with significant penalties.”

Why Avalara?


Jean initiated the search for a sales tax solution and determined that since the company had just invested in a major upgrade, Avalara’s certified integration with Everest made it the obvious choice. 

“Changing ERP systems is a massive, painful project, and we wanted to avoid that if we could,” says Jean. “Avalara gave us a way to minimize that pain and improve our sales tax compliance at the same time.”

Integration


JL Marine implemented Avalara’s sales tax compliance solution in conjunction with its Magento upgrade and needed to make sure both systems integrated fully with Everest. “The Avalara team worked constantly with Everest and our own IT people to make it work,” says Jean. “We went live in July 2017 and haven’t had an issue since. It has been amazing.”

Today the company uses Avalara AvaTax to calculate sales tax on quotes, sales invoices, and credit memos in both Everest and Magento. When a change is made to a document, the tax is recalculated in real time, using current rules and rates.

Results


Filing tax returns is much easier, Jean says, and having all of the company’s sales tax information stored in one place has taken the pain out of audits as her team no longer has to verify information manually. “I feel confident with what we can provide to any state auditor who comes in,” says Jean. “And we can do it remotely because they can access my information easily over the internet.”

Perhaps the biggest impact of the Avalara implementation is the management of exemption certificates. Whether a reseller calls on the phone or places an order online or through a sales rep, Everest works with Avalara CertCapture to check for a certificate. CertCapture also makes it easy to send notification emails to customers when certificates are due for renewal.

“I’m very impressed with Avalara, and with the Avalara team,” Jean says. “Everything runs very smoothly.”

Customer
JL Marine Systems

Industry
Manufacturing

Tax type
Sales and use

Integration
Everest Software, Magento

Tax challenges

  • Company growth
  • Exemption management
  • Disparate systems

Products used

Avalara AvaTax
Dynamically delivers sales and use tax calculations, based on the latest rules and rates in our tax engine, to a shopping cart or invoicing system at the time of purchase.

Avalara CertCapture
A highly scalable solution to securely collect, store, and manage tax documents in the cloud and automate exemptions at checkout.

Avalara Returns
Automatically gathers data from AvaTax to prepare and file sales and use tax returns and remit payments across multiple jurisdictions every filing cycle.


Benefits

  • Saving finance team 5–10 hours per week managing sales tax
  • Adding states with ease
  • Easy management of exemption certificates and capture at point of sale

Industry type

Manufacturing
Meet customer needs and stay compliant when you’re collecting sales tax or exemption certificates.

“I’m very impressed with Avalara, and with the Avalara team. Everything runs very smoothly. I don’t even have to think about it.”

Jean Treimanis
CFO

 

“I’m very impressed with Avalara, and with the Avalara team. Everything runs very smoothly. I don’t even have to think about it.”

Jean Treimanis
CFO

 

Join the 30,000+ customers that automate tax compliance with Avalara
See how easily our solutions work with your business applications.
Curious how we can help with your specific tax challenges? Just ask.