Sales Tax Simplified

Download PDF

In 2019, Computer Insights, Inc. partnered with Avalara AvaTax to eliminate the arduous tasks involved in keeping up with sales tax laws. At the time, there were approximately 11,000 standard sales tax jurisdictions in the United States. As of this writing, there are over 13,000 sales and use tax jurisdictions. Each of these jurisdictions has multiple tax rates, all of which can change monthly depending on economic and political circumstances. The count of jurisdictions differs significantly from state to state. For instance, New Jersey, despite its numerous municipalities, only has two sales tax jurisdictions, whereas Texas, incredibly, has over 1,600. However, a lower number of jurisdictions doesn’t necessarily mean reduced complexity, as states and localities maintain distinct laws and procedures governing sales tax administration, audits, enforcement, and notifications of rate adjustments.

If you are struggling to keep up with the challenges associated with sales tax, you need software that takes care of it for you. The Business Edge^TM by Computers Insights, with its Avalara AvaTax Certified Integration, can eliminate the overhead and headaches associated with sales tax. Everything happens automatically in the background as you go about your normal day-to-day business; every detail is stored automatically and easily retrieved when required.

Do you know where your company has nexus and what tax laws affect you? Do you know which of your customers’ tax exemption certificates are legitimate and haven’t expired? Avalara can help.

Computer Insights, Inc. Celebrates Five Years With Avalara

The Business Edge^TM by Computer Insights is a full-featured state-of-the-art ERP system that helps businesses streamline their business processes in every aspect of their business. The Business Edge^TM eliminates steps from day-to-day activities and provides unparalleled reporting and analysis features.

Benefits include intuitive vendormanaged inventory systems, direct connections to master distributors with the Fastener Supply Chain Network, wireless warehouse options, lot and location tracking, integrated quality and inspection, and much more.

The Business Edge^TM became a certified Avalara AvaTax integration in 2019. When activated, the connection talks to Avalara as you work without any extra effort being demanded of you. This frees up time you are spending managing sales taxes, allowing you to focus on more important things.

Sales tax is automatically calculated based on the product type and customer taxability by ship-to address.

If an order requires different sales tax rules applied to different line items, you can handle that with a single click of a button.

Do you sell to companies that require custom tax rules? The Business Edge^TM makes setting up custom tax rules easy; after they are created, they are automatically used when applicable. You do not have to worry about remembering who has special requirements.

Addresses are validated as you enter them through Avalara and the database from the USPS. As you use your existing addresses as ship-to locations, the system will validate them. Validating addresses ensures the taxes calculated are accurate. If you are shipping to worksites that do not have addresses, like New Mexico oil and gas wells, the system can calculate sales taxes based on the latitude and longitude. Information is available where you need it and when you need it. For example, if a customer asks why you charged them what you did for sales tax, you can easily see the detailed tax jurisdiction breakdown. Summary and detailed tax reports are available for review. Avalara can prepare and file your returns while distributing payments to all tax jurisdictions on your behalf or you can use The Business Edge^TM intuitive sales tax reports to file and remit your own taxes.

Who Is Avalara?

Avalara helps businesses get tax compliance right by partnering with leading ERP systems like The Business Edge^TM. Avalara is a publicly-traded company and was ranked one of the fastest growing companies in North America on Deloitte’s 2018 Technology Fast 500.

The Benefits of Avalara

Avalara’s cloud based features are provided as an a la carte subscription service. You can sign up for just what you need.

Calculate Taxes – Per line item based on geo locations, entity-use, and product Avalara Certified Implementation Partner classifications.
File & Remit Taxes – Avalara can prepare and file your returns while distributing payments to all tax jurisdictions on your behalf.
Manage Certificates – Taxes will automatically be omitted from exempt sales while managing exemption documents.
Evaluate Your Nexus – Based on your sales history, Avalara can show you where you are obligated to file taxes and they can get you registered.
Address Validation – The Business Edge’s^TM event driven address validation means this can usually be added with no additional cost.

What People Are Saying….

“Projects come down to people and technology. We appreciate the collaboration between Avalara and Computer Insights, as well as our Monroe accounting and implementation teams. The entire team had a win-win-win attitude. The technical implementation is saving Monroe a ton of time processing sales tax across our different state and local jurisdictions. As more states and local jurisdictions put the onus on businesses to collect tax, these partnerships are going to be essential for industrial distributors”
Dan Hutchinson, CFO Monroe Engineering LLC.

“Avalara has great customer service. Their people are very personable and they keep reaching out to make sure you are moving along in the setup. Now that we have it working in TBE, we like that Avalara not only gets the tax correct, but it also does an address check which helps us reduce shipping errors.”
Ralph Keepers, Director IT & Avionics, Spencer Aircraft

“Avalara integration through The Business Edge has cut time spent on sales tax and compliance by over 80%. Every aspect of the process is smoother, from Avalara specifying correct tax jurisdictions and tax rates, to remitting sales tax payments to countless jurisdictions across the country. Handling sales tax across multiple states was one of our biggest headaches. Now, thanks to Avalara and Computer Insights, it’s not even a concern.”
Scott Habetz, Owner, STS Industrial, Inc.

Get Connected

If you are already lucky enough to be using The Business Edge^TM by Computer Insights you are only a few phone calls away from enabling your system to take advantage of all of the Avalara time saving features.

Are you looking for an ERP system that will help you run your business more efficiently?

Sales and Use Tax Calculations For The Business Edge^TM

Avalara AvaTax automatically calculates sales and use tax for transactions, invoices, and other activity powered by The Business Edge^TM. It’s powerful stuff. You’re going to save a lot of time.

More Information

For more about Avalara contact Ian Zwit, Sales Executive, at Avalara, 255 South King St, Suite 1800, Seattle, WA 98104. Tel: (877) 314-2607, email: ian.zwit@ avalara.com or visit them online at www.avalara.com.

For more about The Business Edge^TM contact Dennis Cowhey, President, at Computer Insights, Inc., Tel: (800) 539-1233, email: sales@ci-inc.com or www.ci- inc.com.