How accurate is your tax data and what is the quality of your returns technology?

Overview

You want to know about the accuracy of Avalara's tax data and the quality of our returns technology.

Returns for Communications

This is a two-fold question. We cannot ensure the accuracy of the tax data received from our client – that is the responsibility of the client’s revenue assurance or tax accounting departments. Those departments have access to information that would indicate if the tax data is in line with the billing and invoicing reports. We can review the tax amount for reasonableness and compare it to the previous month or quarter, but we cannot speak to whether it is trending properly. We work with the client to establish limits for variances. If the variances are outside of those limits then we notify the client and work with them to identify and address the issue.
The second part of this question relates to whether the tax information that is received is properly applied and produces a high quality return. Avalara has developed in-house software that applies the tax amount by type and jurisdiction to a return, and those returns are reviewed by the staff. In addition, the rules and regulations that apply to tax compliance are regularly reviewed and updated, and the staff is made aware of these updates on a monthly basis.