Streamline Your Store’s Sales Tax With Avalara’s Automation Tool

It’s probably a safe bet that you didn’t get into business because you love complying with sales tax laws. 

That’s why we built Avalara AvaTax, a sales tax automation tool that allows you to spend more time growing your business and less time figuring out which of the more than 13,000 U.S. sales and use tax jurisdictions you need to be registered with, how much you need to send each one — and when you need to send it.

Learn for yourself what thousands of BigCommerce companies already know: Automation makes it easier to do sales tax right, so you can spend more time doing right by your customers.

Compliance Can Be Hard

In the old days, sales tax compliance was relatively easy: You ran a brick-and-mortar store selling products to your neighbors, then you collected the tax on those transactions and remitted it to your state and local tax authorities. 

But ecommerce has changed all that. Today, you can have customers in dozens of states. 

In addition, in 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court said states can require ecommerce businesses like yours to collect taxes on sales to buyers within their borders. Today, 45 states have enacted these kinds of requirements. (That’s every state that has a sales tax.)

Each state has its own set of laws governing business registrations and when you have to start collecting taxes on sales. Often, identical products and services are taxed in different ways across state, county, and city boundaries. 

And elected officials vote to change the laws all the time.

Keeping track of all these things can be a full-time job. Knowing the rates and calculating the right amount to collect on each transaction is a challenge. Calculating it correctly on every sale — without fat-fingered foul-ups — is essential if your goal is to stay compliant and avoid audit penalties. 

Plus, every hour you spend on sale tax compliance is an hour that you don’t get to spend growing your business and satisfying your customers. 

Fortunately, we’ve got a solution.

Avalara Makes It Work

Download our Avalara AvaTax app — which integrates seamlessly into your BigCommerce website — and let us automatically calculate and track sales tax on your transactions.

Low-hassle set-up: Just click a button and make a few keystrokes, and within minutes, we can have you ready with a customized platform to collect and remit sales tax in your local jurisdiction.

Automated tax code classification: You may need to calculate, collect, and remit different levels of taxes within the same transaction. Just upload your product catalog and Avalara’s software can help you identify tax rates for your products.

Heat map: We help track where your customers are and alert you when your business has grown to the point when you should consider registering in a new state.

Let Avalara Help You Grow

Avalara AvaTax can do a lot for small businesses. But some businesses have specialized needs. 

For these BigCommerce businesses, we offer additional add-on tools that can help you solve some of the more complex tax problems: 

Avalara AvaTax Cross-Border: Designed for companies with customers outside the United States, it helps you calculates duties or tariffs for cross-border buyers in advance. That way, there are no surprise costs for your customers, and you know you’ve collected the right amount to remit to authorities. 

Avalara Returns for Small Business: As your online business grows, the process of preparing and filing sales tax returns in many states becomes more complicated and time consuming. How often do you need to file in each jurisdiction? How much time do you have after a sale? Make it easier by using our automated tax return filing software. It’s specifically designed for ecommerce sellers like you.

Get more out of your BigCommerce website with Avalara automated sales tax software.