Overview of the Avalara AvaTax service in Acctivate.

AvaTax is a Software-as-a-Service offering that is fully integrated within Acctivate and QuickBoks.  It provides robust sales tax calculations and compliance for companies of all sizes processing orders from multiple sources.

Acctivate now includes support for the AvaTax Sales Tax Service from Avalara.  AvaTax is a Software-as-a-Service offering that is fully integrated within Acctivate.  It provides robust sales tax calculations and compliance for companies of all sizes processing orders from multiple sources.

Avalara is the leading provider for online sales tax calculations with over 100,000+ taxability rules for 11,000+ jurisdictions.  AvaTax is also offered as a direct integration with QuickBooks too.

The AvaTax integration is an optional module in Acctivate.  Please contact your Acctivate account representative for more information.

Sales Tax Options

Acctivate currently supports two options for sales tax calculation, remittance and compliance.

  1. Embedded - Acctivate performs the sales tax computations based on the Tax Codes, Items and Groups from your financial accounting software (e.g., QuickBooks).  Remittance is handled by the financial accounting software.
  2. AvaTax - Sales tax is calculated by the AvaTax web service and provided to Acctivate.  The sales tax amount is include on the A/R invoice without details of the jurisdiction, tax rules, etc.  Remittance to the tax agency is handled by the AvaTax Returns service.

AvaTax Components

There are three key Avalara services that are supported by Acctivate: AvaTax Calc, Certs and Returns.

avatax-calc-logo

AvaTax Calc

AvaTax Calc is the core service that provides the sales tax functionality for Acctivate users:

  • Address Validation with suggestions
  • Automatic jurisdiction selection at the "roof top" level
  • Taxability rules per Product Class
  • Tax overrides for specific Product ID's
  • Tax Holiday exceptions
avatax-certs-logo

AvaTax Certs

AvaTax Certs is an add-on service that manages your customers' tax exemption certificates.  Acctivate provides the Customer ID/Name and Certificate number from the Sales Quote, Order and/or Invoice.  This service allows you to manage certificates directly in Avalara with the following advanced services:

  • Collect certificates online from customers
  • Verification of certificates
  • Digital storage and retrieval
  • View transaction history for certificates
  • Expiration and renewal notifications
avatax-returns-logo

AvaTax Returns

AvaTax Returns is the service that prepares and remits tax payments to each sales tax agency.  This service is not part of the direct integration between Acctivate and Avalara.  However, it's an important component of the overall AvaTax service.  There are numerous benefits of the AvaTax Returns service:

  • Up-to-date jurisdictional information
  • Reduce employee time spent on returns
  • Single payment to cover all returns
  • Reduced penalties and interest by filing quickly
  • Retention compliance

Next Steps

  1. Contact your Acctivate account representative to set up your Avalara AvaTax account
  2. Review our Avalara Account Setup guide