Snowflake streamlines global tax with Avalara

The Snowflake Inc. Data Cloud solution enables organizations to unite siloed data, securely share data, and power data applications for diverse AI/ML and analytic workloads. Wherever data or users live, Snowflake delivers a single data experience that spans multiple clouds and geographies.

Snowflake faced significant challenges with its previous tax compliance provider as it expanded globally. The system was plagued by high error rates due to inaccurate address validation and inefficiencies. This task was time-consuming for the Snowflake billing team to fix. Ricardo Rodriguez, Senior Manager of Indirect Tax at Snowflake, explains, “We realized that our billing team was maintaining our tax engine and conducting research and mapping far outside their primary scope.” This misallocation of responsibility for managing and correcting errors led to compliance risks and inefficiencies, prompting a need for change.

As global operations grew, the existing setup struggled with the complexity of diverse tax regulations across multiple jurisdictions. Snowflake recognized the urgent need for a more robust, streamlined, and scalable tax solution that would save them time, prevent operational bottlenecks, and maintain compliance effectively.

Snowflake turned to Avalara for answers. Riaan du Preez, Senior Director of Financial Systems, says, “[We needed a solution] that supported Snowflake’s internally developed tax web services without the need for customizations or significant custom rules or overrides.”

Highlighting the technical integration into their existing back-office systems, Riaan notes, “Utilizing the Workday Tax Framework, Avalara developed a real-time integration (with the v5 connector) that supports both goods and services.” This enhances accuracy in tax calculations, boosting operational efficiency.

The partnership with Avalara strengthens client relationships for Snowflake by increasing trust and satisfaction through reliable and accurate tax handling, essential for business growth.