Because there will be existing, open transactions when the Avalara system is activated, dealers are still required to produce IntelliDealer tax reports for filling out any required government tax/exemption forms. The IntelliDealer tax reports have been modified to exclude any transactions where tax was calculated using the AvaTax service. The dealer is required to use the Avalara admin console to produce the necessary tax reports for filling out any required government tax/exemption forms.
Avalara Filing Service
Avalara offers the Avalara Returns service, which prepares and files your sales and use tax returns with the respective jurisdictions. For a separate fee, Avalara will remit the funds on your behalf, provide trackable records, perform timely remittance and manage tax notifications. Contact your Avalara representative if you are interested in this service.
To take advantage of this service, you MUST flush all of the transactions out of the system that are still taxing using the old tax methodology. In order to help expedite this process, you should consider closing out Rental Contracts and reopening them. The same applies for Work Orders and General Invoices that have repetitive billing. Parts purge more quickly than any other system because invoices don’t typically stay open for a lengthy period of time. However, if they do, those should be closed out as well and reopened. The sooner you get these switched over, the sooner you can take advantage of the Avalara Returns offering.
Other Considerations
By default, Avalara calculates tax on a line by line basis. The Avalara system can be changed to tax by invoice. The dealer needs to consult with their Avalara implementation specialist for the best setup choice.
Streamlined Sales Tax (SST)
In the United States, you may be familiar with and/or registered for Streamlined Sales Tax (SST). If you are registered for SST, navigate to Configuration > Interfaces >AvaTax and select Streamlined Sales Tax (SST) Enabled. This setting removes the ability to use latitude and longitude for Ship To addresses. Entity Use Codes are still available, however the SST parameters do not allow for Entity Use Codes.
For more information on SST, contact your Avalara representative or visit:
https://www.avalara.com/us/en/learn/whitepapers/streamlined-sales-tax.html