ADP SmartCompliance is a tax and regulatory compliance platform for midsize or larger companies using an ERP or non-ADP platform for HR and HRMS services.
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Avalara
Score 8.1 out of 10
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Avalara AvaTax connects to the software that businesses already have and delivers sales tax decisions based on precise geo-location in more than 12,000 taxing jurisdictions in the U.S.
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Pricing
ADP SmartCompliance
Avalara
Editions & Modules
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No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
ADP SmartCompliance
Avalara
Free Trial
No
No
Free/Freemium Version
No
No
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
No
No
Entry-level Setup Fee
Required
Optional
Additional Details
Pricing varies based upon modules deployed and features enabled.
ADP SmartCompliance had already been selected as a vendor prior to my joining the company. I think one area where ADP excels over OneSource is in the amendment processing. OneSource has a very manual process where you have to request each period/state/jurisdiction needed, then …
This is different systems and they have different pros and cons. Customer services from UKG are more responsive vs ADP. ADP customer may take a few days or longer to response back. Also, if you give them a call, the wait time for the rep is pretty long which is highly not …
ADP has been around the longest and has the most experience of any company out there. They continually upgrade their systems to make it user friendly. They have a large knowledgeable staff and are available at all times.
Oursource partners is the only other company that I have used in my dealings with tax and payroll. Both are pertty comparable however ADP SmartCompliance does have the years of experience behind them as for Outsource partners is a fairly new vendor.
Avalara makes tax compliance easier with automation, multi-state filing, and error detection, plus secure e-filing and TIN matching to help avoid IRS penalties
TaxJar is integrated with Kaseya Autotask, and this integration is very inefficient and was not easy to set up. Neither TaxJar nor Kaseya support was helpful at all, "rude" is the only word to describe that, whereas Avalara has always tried to be helpful and has been very …
When I first started my position, we were already in the process of going into Avalara. I am unsure why our previous Controller selected Avalara, but I do believe it was because of the ease of use and aiding with determining nexus in states where we ship our products.
We selected Avalara because our prior service did not have the range of tax codes required for our products. They had nothing related to medical devices or supplies, so we used a generic 'taxable' tax code. Customers were unhappy because some states exempted the product we …
Avalara has provided additional content for product taxability and tax rates. Additionally the ease of use or user friendliness of the platform for our tax team to utilize the full capabilities of Avalara has proven to be best in class. Other platforms may require additional …
The initial reasoning behind making the switch from the Wolters Kluwer product to Avalara were two-fold. First, we were migrating to a new ERP system and felt more was needed from our tax software. Secondly, it was the due to the DOR in the state of TN. The current tax …
Setting up a state in Vertex was not intuitive or user friendly. The system itself was clunky. Trying to set up a custom tax override was a nightmare. Whereas any of these tasks are very simple with Avalara. Setting up a state is as simple as checking a box and entering a start …
I have not used any similar products. I think Avalara is very valuable in the right situation but also has room to improve certain features, offerings.
Customer service when I call in for Wage Payment issues is usually very helpful and I get answers quickly. I have had several different CSRs since we have had ADP SmartCompliance and they have not always been the most helpful or forthcoming with information. It makes it difficult to do what I need to do if I don't have the help and support from those that know what needs to happen and when. I can't always have a conversation with that person when I need to.
As a non-profit that relies on volunteers, having a system that is easy to use and cost effective is crucial. Alavara fit both of those needs for us. Also, since this is a task that is completed only once a year, it needs to be simple to use, which Alavara is. And lastly, since the IRS rules are often complicated and change regularly, it is helpful to have a vendor that stays current with the changes and incorporates them into the process which Alavara does.
Provision a new state is very easy through SmartCompliance
There is a resource link within SmartCompliance that gives you a lot of information about the state you are entering with new employees, agency phone numbers, and helpful hints.
You can easily see your tax profiles and the status of each along with the quarterly reports that have been filed.
Has extensive research and documentation on telecommunications industry
Research is always up to date
The ability to ask questions and get clarification on specific situations with no limit as to how you ask a question and often get the answer the same day
I would like to be provided a copy of additional information provided to a jurisdiction when there is an Agency Notice resolution.
Access to the code used on the quarterly reports. Code numbers don't do us any good if we don't know what they are in order to address accordingly.
The amount of time for issue resolution on an agency notice, at times, can take a very long time before receiving a resolution and there is never a response when asking for an update.
I find it virtually impossible to access people when you have issues with anything
In my experience, everything runs through account managers and they are non-responsive and unavailable most of the time.
In my experience, 99% of all communication with anybody at Avalara has to be done via some ridiculous form or via email. Human contact is extremely difficult to resolve an issue that sometimes requires human to human contact.
There is no other option on the table for us at the moment to go with a different vendor. We also have had very little issues processing with ADP that would make us want to look for a new vendor.
I have not been able to find a company that does it better than Avalara. I still have lots of problems, but we are working through them. Based on other demos i have seen and talking with peers in other companies, this is the best.
SOme historical information is hard to retrieve and communications go out to clients when ADP is doing some internal work. This is confusing when the client gets one of these notices but no action is required. ADP needs to stop the notices or put a message on the top so the client is aware.
The UI is simple and straightforward. The site is organized in a manner that is easy to understand for beginners and experts alike. There's also tons of resoruces on Avalara University at your disposal to better understand how Avalara can work best for your business needs. I would recommend Avalara to anyone wanting to investment in the betterment of their business's sales tax function
Exceptional Services Received during our Build . The teams of ADP Professionals assisted on a daily basis with tight deadlines and testing, each day , each Qtr. and annual processes including setting up local and State agencies for the 50 State we are reporting since our Workday go live 4/1/23. The process was seamless.
If ADP is having issues, they communicate the problem within the solution once you log in. They also communicate that the issue will be fixed promptly. Reports run efficiently and in a reasonable amount of time. Also, the reports allow for various reporting types to be produced like a PDF or a Microsoft Excel file.
We do have trouble tying Avalara's reporting back to our POS, but we just got a new POS system and there are bugs we are still trying to work out within the POS system. I do not believe this is an Avalara issue
ADP's support team creates case numbers for every transaction and process. This case is being tracked for status update. ADP Support always notifies us the next step of the process by emailing us if action is needed or not. We can always check the status online and can follow up with them. We can also call them for instant answer to our urgent concerns.
Avalara is not consistent in giving us information timely. For instance, right now, we have a help desk ticket with them that's been open since October. They are still trying to figure it out and we haven't gotten any feedback on where they are at or what is going on. That seems to me a very excessive amount of time to be working on a problem. Was it forgotten? Is there something bigger going on? Do they need something from us? An update would be helpful.
Also, many times when we call with an issue or concern (wrong tax rate for instance) we generally feel like the help desk assumes it's of our doing instead of theirs and doesn't truely listen when we explain the problem because we end up repeating it over and over as well as sending examples. We expect more respect on our end.
Exceptional Training Services Received during and after our Build . The teams of ADP Professionals assisted on a daily basis with tight deadlines and testing, each day , each Qtr. and annual processes including setting up local and State agencies for the 50 State we are reporting since our Workday go live 4/1/23. The process was seamless.
They have annual training for Smart Compliance, which is very helpful. We learn the most up to laws for various subject matters, like garnishments, payroll law, child support, state unemployment laws by states. We also earn credit toward certifications. The training is user friendly, and highly recommended. It can be done live or listened to at your own convenience.
The documentation online we informative and helpful. The videos from the Avalara institute and the help tab if we have any questions and the search too were helpful. We like the ease of using the click here for more information tool about nexus and the information for the ECM Pro training were helpful. Whenever we have a question we normally get an email along with the tool as to where to find our answer. We also like that it shows information about nexus status of the states we maybe approaching and we can look more into it.
Although there are meeting schedule time to time during the implementation, however, some of the time the account manager is not able to attend or miss the meeting. as that said, never able to get a full house to discuss thing in detail with a group. ADP need to look into this
The implementation team from Avalara was very knowledgable and did a good job of passing along information so that we could maintain the system and be able to make future changes ourselves. We had asked for some custom tax setup and they worked with us to get additional taxes set up that they didn't previously have. They worked with us to pull our documentation on tax rules and make sure those were included. I had hoped more scenarios would be there out of the box to cut down on the configuration time.
ADP SmartCompliance had already been selected as a vendor prior to my joining the company. I think one area where ADP excels over OneSource is in the amendment processing. OneSource has a very manual process where you have to request each period/state/jurisdiction needed, then you have to manually review and approve each amendment within a short amount of time. ADP's process of submitting an amendment sync and automatically detecting what amendments are needed based on the information in the sync is much preferred.
TaxJar is integrated with Kaseya autotask, and this integration is very inefficient and was not easy to set up. Neither TaxJar nor Kaseya support was helpful at all, "rude" is the only word to describe that, whereas Avalara has always tried to be helpful and has been very friendly to work with. TaxJar has no similar capability to retain their tax-calculated transactions and file the returns; TaxJar would calculate the taxes in Kaseya autotask and you would still have to manually import the data into TaxJar if you wanted to subscribe and have them file your returns. Needless to say that was a non-starter.
Exceptional Services Received during our Build . The teams of ADP Professionals assisted on a daily basis with tight deadlines and testing, each day , each Qtr. and annual processes including setting up local and State agencies for the 50 State we are reporting since our Workday go live 4/1/23. The process was seamless.
