| [January 18, 2006] |
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Avalara's AvaTax Scores Top Marks with QuickBooks Experts; Awarded ``Awesome Add-Ons for 2006'' Recognition; ProAdvisor Rates Sales Tax Solution ``Excellent''
BAINBRIDGE ISLAND, Wash. --(Business Wire)-- Jan. 18, 2006 -- AvaTax ST has just logged two major endorsements for its new QuickBooks integration. One of these kudos is from Doug Sleeter - Founder and President of the Sleeter Group, and one of the most prominent QuickBooks experts in the market - while the other comes from QuickBooks Certified ProAdvisor and product reviewer, Susan Gaswirth. Both of these endorsements put AvaTax in a class by itself when it comes to providing cost-effective, fully-integrated and easy-to-use real-time sales and use tax calculations for QuickBooks users.
In his annual "Awesome QuickBooks Add-ons" award program for 2006, Doug Sleeter announced that AvaTax ST had catapulted to the top, becoming - literally overnight - one of QuickBooks' top-ten integrated applications.
"Avalara's AvaTax ST is quite candidly one of the best things to happen to improve key business operations for QuickBooks users in a long time," Sleeter said. "Awesome add-on developer Avalara has done a great job of integration with QuickBooks."
In the latest issue of his "Sleeter Group" online newsletter, which can be found at (http://www.sleeter.com/articles/1133221095), Doug Sleeter reported: "AvaTax ST is a hosted Web service that works behind the scenes of QuickBooks to validate customer addresses, provide a correct sales tax calculation for each transaction, automatically generate sales tax returns, and provide detailed sales tax reports. For businesses selling into multiple jurisdictions, this product provides enterprise-level sales tax automation.
"Thousands of small and mid-sized businesses which use QuickBooks have real challenges when it comes to sales tax calculations," Sleeter pointed out. "Our clients have been raising that issue for years - but until now, we had little more to give them than understanding. With thousands of sales tax jurisdictions and their constantly-changing rules, there just has been no practical way for companies to know when to tax - and how much to tax - their clients. Manual research for each transaction was time-consuming and way too costly - yet the audit-risks from failure to properly calculate those taxes could be ruinous. That put them right at the top of my 'Awesome QuickBooks Add-Ons' list, right from the start."
"While we've had our eye on Avalara for more than a year," Sleeter explained. "It didn't hurt their standing with us that QuickBooks ProAdvisor Susan Gaswirth has just published a highly-favorable review of the AvaTax ST integration."
This AvaTax ST for QuickBooks product review - completed just days before the start of Sleeter's 2005 year-end annual conference - can be found at: http://www.avalara.com/index.cfm/page/Itn20051030.
"Gaswirth's product review gave AvaTax ST an overall 'excellent' rating," according to Avalara's CEO, Jared Vogt, "and rated AvaTax ST 'Spectacular' in two vital categories, including 'Integration with QuickBooks.' This smash-hit rating helped boost the buzz about AvaTax ST at Doug Sleeter's prestigious 2005 QuickBooks Consultants Conference - buzz that was ramped up even further when Doug also named us one of his 'Awesome QuickBooks Add-ons' during his wrap-up keynote speech. This was a great week - we got high-marks from the ProAdvisor community, as well as from a user-centric reviewer - establishing that we are the right product at the right time to meet the small business sales tax compliance crisis."
In reviewing the new AvaTax ST integration with QuickBooks, Gaswirth's product review noted the following:
-- Installation was simple
-- The interface was easy to utilize
-- AvaTax ST performs a critical business function that can save a lot of money
-- AvaTax ST is easy to use
-- Avalara has a well-documented privacy policy; and,
-- AvaTax ST integrates seamlessly with QuickBooks
Randy Johnston, a well-known CPA technology educator and Executive Vice President of K2 Enterprises (K2E), explained the significance of these dual endorsements. "Intuit's independent ProAdvisor group members are very protective of their client base - they review third-party products carefully, and are quick to warn off valued clients from less-than-acceptable products. For that reason - as well as for their deep understanding of their core market - Gaswirth's strong endorsement of AvaTax ST is significant, and trustworthy."
Johnston has taken a close look at Avalara and AvaTax ST. "There has long been a critical need - especially among SMB business users of QuickBooks - for a low-cost sales tax calculation solution that was trustworthy, easy to use, effective and secure. AvaTax ST - an on-demand, Web-based tax calculating solution - meets all four of those demanding criteria. Over the past year, we at K2E have not only examined AvaTax ST carefully, but we've also recommended it to clients who need the kinds of solutions Avalara offers."
In rolling out seamless integrations for a dozen of the most popular SMB-market accounting packages, AvaTax ST has set a new standard for effective small business sales tax calculations. Almost as soon as Avalara began developing a QuickBooks integration, the on-demand Web service caught Doug Sleeter's attention.
"As soon as I saw a demo of the AvaTax ST product, I knew it would be something special," Sleeter noted. "Avalara has tackled a very difficult problem, and they've provided the best integration possible within the capabilities of the QuickBooks SDK. There are more than 8,000 discrete sales tax jurisdictions in North America, and more than 900 tax law changes each year - this is far more than any small business can reasonably keep up with."
"Fortune 500 companies have large internal tax-compliance staffs, and can afford tax calculation software that can easily cost more than $50,000," Vogt explained. "However, until Avalara developed our innovative on-demand solution, small businesses really had only three choices: They could research each individual transaction's sales tax - or they could guess - or they could ignore sales tax and hope that they'd never be audited. And the smaller the business, the bigger the risk. Until now. After a successful five-month beta trial, we have brought a robust version of AvaTax ST for QuickBooks to the market - and clearly, market experts think we've done something very special."
About AvaTax ST(TM)
An SMB market-leading, Web-service-based sales tax solution, AvaTax ST instantly and accurately calculates sales tax for clients in any of the more than 8,000 taxing jurisdictions in North America. AvaTax ST provides detailed, real-time reporting and automatically generates pre-populated sales tax returns.
AvaTax ST is the most comprehensive, full-service, automated sales tax solution in the world, eliminating forever the need for Avalara's clients to do rate lookups, tax detail research and tax schedule creation. AvaTax ST makes the hassle of filing returns and remittance go away too. AvaTax ST performs all of these tasks, and does so more affordably than any other solution on the market today. AvaTax ST comes integrated with SMB financial applications serving more businesses than any other solution on the market today, including Intuit's QuickBooks, Sage Software's Sage MAS 90 ERP, Sage MAS 200 ERP, Sage MAS 500 ERP and Sage Accpac ERP; Epicor's iScala; and Great Plains and Navision(R) from Microsoft Business Solutions. Additionally, with AvaTax On-Demand(TM) developers can integrate Avalara's sales tax Web service with any e-commerce, third party or custom-build solution with use of a comprehensive Software Developer's Kit (SDK).
About Avalara
Headquartered on Bainbridge Island near Seattle, Washington, Avalara is changing the sales tax landscape by delivering innovative and affordable solutions to small and mid-sized businesses. Avalara's mission is to transform the tax process for our clients by creating cost-effective, state-of-the-art solutions. Avalara does so through integrated on-demand, Web-based services that provide transparent transactions, accurate tax compliance, painless administration and effortless reporting.
About Sleeter Group
Since 1994, Doug Sleeter and The Sleeter Group have taught over 30,000 accountants and QuickBooks users how to best use QuickBooks software. A pioneer in developing some of the first of Intuit's QuickBooks training materials, Sleeter authors a monthly column carried by The CPA Technology Advisor titled "The QuickBooks Advisor", and continues to consult with Intuit - which, in turn, has endorsed Sleeter's QuickBooks Technology Workshop for accounting professionals.
About K2E
K2E is one of the most well-regarded technology advisor and training firms serving the CPA professional community today, providing software technology training to more than 25,000 CPAs a year. K2E prides itself on its ability to make complex technology understandable to CPAs who are more focused on client service than on technology.
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