Collecting W-9s from vendors, freelancers, contractors, and sellers is one of the most time-consuming aspects of IRS compliance. The good news is that it's one of the many aspects of IRS compliance in which Avalara's paperless process makes a very big difference.

It all begins when you add a company. You'll be prompted to add some essential information such as the name, the company EIN, the street address, an email address, a phone number, and so on. You'll also need to choose whether or not you'd like Avalara to conduct TIN matching during the W-9 onboarding process. This is a handy feature that can cut down on a lot of time spent correcting errors down the road.

Once the company's essential information is in the system, requesting a W-9 is as simple as entering a vendor's name and email address. You're not limited to just one W-9 at a time — you can request thousands at a time using a CSV template. And don't worry if you need to collect W-4s or W-8s, the application supports those too.

Let's click send and take a look at our dashboard where we can see the status of our requests. They both say requested.

Meanwhile, what does the vendor experience? They receive an email, and when they click on the call to action, they automatically get redirected to a page that's been personalized just for them. They enter their information — for example, as a sole proprietor with an address, a Social Security number, and an electronic signature.

In this example, our TIN matching service did its job and caught an error before it had a chance to cause problems. This means the vendor is prompted to go back and fix their error and resubmit.

Now the W-9 onboarding is a success. The vendor can download a PDF copy for their records, and meanwhile we can refresh our queue and see confirmation that they have signed and submitted their W-9. It's now in the system where it will remain safe and secure.

Finally, let's flash forward to January. Turning this W-9 into a 1099 is as simple as clicking the transfer button and selecting which kind of 1099 you want to generate. Then you're all set to proceed with e-filing and recipient e-delivery ahead of the IRS deadlines. We've covered those topics in a separate demonstration. As always, let us know if you have any questions.