Industry Solutions: Manufacturing

Automate sales and use tax compliance and exemption certificate management

Avalara helps solve common compliance challenges manufacturers and distributors face

Manage compliance for exempt sales

Automate exempt sales and certificate management for purchases, drop shipments, and online sales.

Challenge

Collecting the right documentation and applying sales tax exemptions can be challenging, especially with online sales.
If tax is charged when it shouldn’t be, unhappy customers have to chase down credits and rebills, which takes up valuable time for accounting departments.
Missing or invalid certificates require businesses to choose between bothering customers or being out of compliance.

Solution

Avalara CertCapture collects exemption certificates as part of the transaction process, whether the sale is made in person or online.
CertCapture then works with Avalara AvaTax to automatically exempt tax on future sales when a valid certificate is on file, so your customers are charged appropriately.
CertCapture also sends renewal alerts to help you keep documents up to date.

Know when and where to file in each location

See where you trigger compliance obligations and individual filing deadlines.

Challenge

Some states have economic nexus rules, others don’t. Some count exempt sales toward that total, others omit them.
And once you’ve figured out where to register, each state has its own rules and schedules for returns filing and remittance.

Solution

AvaTax monitors nexus thresholds in each state, according to individual state rules. You’ll know when your business triggers an obligation to collect sales tax or exemption certificates.
Avalara Returns keeps track of changing filing requirements and deadlines in each state, making it easier for you to file on time, everywhere you need to file — even when you have a $0 return.

Remain compliant with complex rates and rules

Apply different tax rates for the same products across jurisdictions, states, and countries.

Challenge

Selling across jurisdictions means monitoring multiple tax rates and factoring in different product taxability rules.
Even for places you’re established in, rates change all the time, so you can’t just set it and forget it.
Charging the wrong rates can create customer frustration or negative press, harming your brand and affecting sales.

Solution

AvaTax automates sales and use tax calculation, so you don’t have to manually update rates for each jurisdiction.
The Avalara tax engine accounts for different product taxability rules in each jurisdiction and AvaTax applies rates based on the details of each individual sale.
For international sales, Avalara Item Classification ensures you’re applying the right HS codes to your products while Avalara AvaTax Cross-Border handles international taxes and customs duties.

Get the information you need, when you need it

Gather reports and prepare for audits in minutes.

Challenge

Gathering reports and preparing for audits are tedious processes. You need to pull the data from each source, then consolidate the information, correcting any inconsistencies.
It’s time-consuming and often diverts resources from revenue-generating tasks.

Solution

AvaTax, CertCapture, and Avalara Consumer Use include detailed reporting capabilities that reduce weeks or months of work to minutes.
Avalara serves as a single source of truth for sales tax information across all the systems involved in the compliance process.

Better for your bottom line

Investing in the right solutions can help save you time and money while improving customer experience.

Use resources more efficiently

Make the most of your technology investment

Avalara offers cloud-based solutions, so there’s no hardware to purchase, ongoing maintenance, or upgrades for IT — and it won’t monopolize your resources during implementation. It also supports a distributed or remote workforce.

Make things easier for your customers

Make things easier for your customers

Proactively gather the right documentation and apply exemptions automatically

Avoid abandoned orders and carts, rebilling, and interrupting the order process for documents by integrating certificate collection with your purchase process.

Automate for now — and later

Our solution grows with your business

Automating exemption certificate management reduces human error and customer frustration when collecting and renewing documents, whether you’re managing 500, 5,000, or 50,000 certificates.

Connect to common ERP and ecommerce systems

We have over 700 prebuilt integrations and a robust API

Our solutions work with disparate systems or omnichannel environments to give you a single source of truth for sales tax compliance information and reporting.

Why Avalara

Our cloud-based, end-to-end solution helps automate the compliance process:

Licensing and registration in multiple jurisdictions

Exemption certificate management

Item classification

Sales and use tax, cross-border taxes, VAT, GST, and specialty taxes

Audit documentation

Returns filing and remittance, even for $0 returns

Customer stories

Learn how other manufacturers have benefited from automating with Avalara.

Pause

“We anticipate being in nearly every state soon. I need to be ready for that. Avalara allows me to be proactive rather than reactive.”

—Jean Treimanis, CFO, JL Marine

“The number one benefit is the peace of mind that comes with knowing that we’re doing things the right way.”

—Joe Rossmeissl, Controller, Pacon

“Preparing financial statements, providing financial analysis, running the department … these are all things that had been put on hold for sales tax. It’s a night and day difference.”

—Jim Stuckey, CFO, Cram-A-Lot

Think exempt sales make you exempt from sales tax compliance? Think again.

Sales tax legislation in the wake of the South Dakota vs. Wayfair, Inc. decision has far-reaching consequences, even for primarily tax-exempt businesses.

In many states, exempt sales count toward sales tax obligation thresholds. Once obligations are triggered, a business has to register with the state and file returns, even if that business hasn’t collected any sales tax. During an audit, states verify all proper documentation is in place for exempt sales, and any deviation can mean taxes, penalties, and fees.