Adobe and Avalara — more than just tax calculations

If you’re selling online, you already know that sales and use tax is complicated. And as you add markets and continue to grow your business, compliance gets even tougher. That’s why so many Adobe Commerce sellers turn to Avalara AvaTax, which delivers automatic tax calculations, reduces the risk of error, and ensures better customer experiences — all in the system you already use.

There’s a lot more to compliance than just getting your sales tax calculations correct, however — and the powerful combination of Adobe and Avalara can help you stay on top of your obligations with automated solutions for a variety of other tax-related tasks.

Filing and remitting

Collecting the right amount of tax on sales in different markets is challenging enough — after all, the US alone has over 13,000 tax jurisdictions. What happens when it’s time to file and remit? (Fortunately, there aren’t quite as many jurisdictions for that since filing and remittance is typically done on the state level. But it can still be a serious hassle.) If you’ve already automated your tax calculation, you know how it increases your efficiency and lowers your risk. But did you know it’s possible to enhance those benefits by automating your returns and payments?

Avalara Returns works right in Adobe Commerce, syncing your sales data and giving you a single dashboard where you can access schedules and rules across all your jurisdictions. Filing returns and sending payments is simple because everything you need is in one place. And it means that you can grow and scale your business with confidence, knowing you’ve got powerful tools to manage the additional complexity.

What can Avalara Returns do for you?

• Sync your sales data in Adobe Commerce for easy return preparation.
• Keep your records secure in a central location with instant access.
• Reduce the cost and frustration of manual filing and remittance.
• Provide access to a dedicated preparer for custom filing needs and special requirements (enterprise-level businesses).
• Support needs for VAT reporting, industry-specific requirements, and more.

Tax-exempt sales

What about those times when you don’t charge tax? Businesses of any size — and in any industry — can have tax-exempt transactions. For instance, customers purchasing items they intend to resell typically don’t pay sales tax because it’s expected they will charge their subsequent customers the appropriate tax. Nonprofit organizations and government agencies often aren’t required to pay sales tax. Sometimes buyers from states that don’t charge sales tax can be exempt even in states that do.

In many of these situations, an exemption certificate from the buyer is required to prove that sales tax shouldn’t be charged — and the seller has to keep them on file to prove that the tax shouldn’t be collected. It’s important to keep it all straight because if you’re ever audited, tax-exempt sales can be one of the first things a state tax auditor examines. Do you have the certificates you need? Are they even valid? And are you spending valuable time and resources manually managing it all? With Avalara Exemption Certificate Management (ECM), you don’t have to worry.

Avalara ECM integrates seamlessly with Adobe Commerce and AvaTax, allowing you to:

• Request exemption certificates from your customers via email and allow them to upload via a convenient web portal.
• Review and validate certificates.
• Store certificates in a centralized location with easy access to all documentation.
• Stay on top of expirations with automatic alerts.
• Free up time and resources so you and your people can work on more important things — like growing your business.

E-invoicing

You’ve probably heard about e-invoicing, but an e-invoice isn’t simply a digital version of a regular invoice. These are specialized documents that have data specifically structured to align with accounting and ERP systems. More and more countries are requiring them — it’s estimated that eventually up to 80% of businesses will be impacted. The good news? E-invoices enhance security and speed while also reducing the cost of printing and mailing. The bad news? Different requirements for different countries can make compliance a challenge. But whether you’re already dealing with e-invoicing or just want to be ready, compliance doesn’t have to be a hassle because it’s another business function that is perfect for automation.

Avalara E-Invoicing and Live Reporting (ELR) was designed to ease the burden of managing e-invoicing requirements, from creating and sending invoices to translating ones you receive. It can work with AvaTax or even as a standalone solution with other tax engines. Here are some of the key benefits:

• Seamless translations for each country
• End-to-end capabilities — creating and delivering invoices, translating and inserting incoming invoices into your system, and more
• Enhanced efficiency versus manual e-invoicing management
• Centralized record keeping lets you easily view prior transactions, correct data errors, and more
• Reduced risk of mistakes that can impact compliance

Tobacco and vape compliance

If you sell tobacco or vape products, you’ve got a lot to manage — excise tax, sales tax, PACT Act requirements, and more. Avalara’s new tobacco connector for Adobe Commerce, coming soon, gives you access to various tobacco-specific solutions, helping you bring everything together for streamlined, efficient management. You can automate day-to-day compliance with automated rate calculation and updates on regulatory changes across states and jurisdictions, file according to PACT Act rules, compile transaction data for a more complete picture of your liability, and even create signature-ready returns and automate filing. Stay tuned for more details.

The power of integration

Your business has enough challenges — don’t let tax compliance add to them and stand in the way of opportunity. The combination of Adobe Commerce and automation tools from Avalara can help you work more efficiently, sell more effectively, and grow more profitably. Learn more about Avalara’s suite of solutions here.

Mike Plaster is a former journalist who has been working with Avalara since 2018 to shed light on sales tax and compliance issues that impact businesses of all sizes.