Automated Sales Tax Tool Eases Filing Taxes for E-Commerce Businesses

TaxJar, a developer of sales tax management software for small-and-medium sized online sellers, announced today the release of its automated local sales tax reporting tool.

TaxJar Pro is designed specifically for accountants who serve e-commerce clients with accounts on Amazon, Shopify, eBay, Etsy and PayPal. TaxJar Pro automatically tracks where sales were made, the amount of tax collected and state filing due dates, saving time and money for accountants and their clients.

“The idea of TaxJar Pro was driven by our customers,” said Mark Faggiano, CEO of TaxJar. “Accountants were telling us that filing state taxes for e-commerce businesses took an average of five hours per client because they had to manually examine each sale and determine where goods were shipped. With TaxJar, we knew accountants could reduce this entire process to 30 or 40 minutes.”

Launched in June 2013, TaxJar provides a detailed, local view of sales tax collected for online merchants. Following its release, TaxJar received feedback from accountants who had signed up for the service to manage sales taxes for their clients and wanted the ability to use the service for multiple clients. TaxJar partnered with George Sleeman, EA, owner of Tax Man To You, to help text and design a Pro service specifically tailored to accountants’ needs. Sleeman also uses TaxJar to manage state tax compliance for his clients.

“I am based in Colorado Springs and I have clients in other states that all sell on Amazon through the Fulfillment by Amazon warehouses,” said Sleeman. “Since my clients are responsible for sales tax in the states that have FBA warehouses, TaxJar has made life much easier. I no longer have to go through spreadsheets and reports to determine what was delivered to where. I can go to my clients profile through my linked accountant access and TaxJar tells me what was sold into what taxing jurisdiction. It saves me tons of time, and my clients a lot of money because it takes me less time. TaxJar also has made it easier to file the sales tax returns by sorting the sales by reporting period.”

When accountants sign up for TaxJar Pro, they can invite clients to personally link their Amazon, Shopify, eBay, Etsy and PayPal accounts to TaxJar. Clients never have to share their personal passwords or access to any of their e-commerce accounts. Accountants can then access sales tax reports for each client from a single interface.

“Customer support at TaxJar has been awesome,” said Sleeman. “They have spent the time to make sure this program works well and they also listen to suggestions. I look forward to working with TaxJar for a very long time.”