Avalara Partners with Epicor for App to Support Sales Tax Calculation, Invoicing in Field

Avalara, which makes cloud-based sales tax, VAT and transactional tax compliance systems, has developed a mobile application that combines Epicor Mobile Field Service with Epicor Tax Connect to support more accurate and streamlined invoicing in the field.

The mobile app – available for both Apple and Android devices – is among the first in the industry to automatically determine sales tax at the transaction location through geo fencing technology. Location-aware capabilities of smartphones, mobile computers, and other devices, can detect when a device enters, leaves, or approaches a geofence – a virtual perimeter for a real-world geographic area.

This capability, combined with Avalara’s comprehensive overlay of tax jurisdictions, enables the Epicor Mobile Field Service application to automatically discern the right sales tax for transactions based on the physical location of the transaction. Users are not required to input a physical street address, which is beneficial when the place of business is remote – such as an oil rig or other outlying job site, or an alternative customer location.

Epicor Tax Connect is integrated into the Epicor Mobile Field Service solution to account for all the various tax rules, boundaries, exemptions, tax holidays, and more to eliminate complexity and simplify the process of sales tax and other transaction tax compliance and reporting requirements.

“The extended capabilities of Epicor Tax Connect will be a great benefit for sales and service teams as more and more companies go mobile,” said Webb Stevens, vice president of product at Avalara. “In many places moving across the street can change the applicable tax rate, and could expose retailers to unforeseen tax liability. Avalara provides an elegant solution to this problem – automating and untethering tax calculation and invoicing so it can occur quickly and easily on the spot – while improving productivity and speed of invoicing.”

“This new comprehensive mobile tax calculation capability extends the Enterprise Resource Planning of the Epicor Mobile Field Service application, bringing invoicing and sales tax calculation – traditionally a cumbersome and complex back office process – to the field with a new sense of immediacy,” said Pascal Van Dooren, chief revenue officer, Avalara. “We’re excited to extend the Avalara value proposition to Epicor Mobile Field Service users, while expanding our partnership with Epicor and deepening our compliance offering in their portfolio.”