Avalara AvaTax vs ONESOURCE Certificate Manager

Avalara AvaTax calculates tax in real time for sales and purchasing workflows. It covers sales tax, consumer use tax, VAT, communications tax, occupancy and lodging tax, and excise tax, and supports automated return filing and tax registration. Address validation uses geospatial technology to match transactions to tax regions rather than relying on ZIP codes. AvaTax connects with ecommerce, ERP, accounting, sales, and purchasing systems, and its REST API supports calculation, document modification, and address validation. Product taxability codes, AI-assisted item classification, custom rules, exemption certificate management, and jurisdiction-specific tax research support tax decisions. Reporting includes dashboards, natural-language search, and audit-ready trails. The service is available through web and API, with integrations including Shopify, NetSuite, QuickBooks, SAP, and Salesforce. Core Compliance costs $79 per month; Core Compliance + SST Services costs $69 per month for qualifying sellers. Qualified sellers may receive state-funded services in up to 25 states. Pricing also varies by plan and transaction volume.

ONESOURCE Certificate Manager automates the collection, validation, storage and renewal of sales tax exemption certificates. It checks certificates against state-specific rules and tracks expiration dates. Customers can submit certificates through a self-service portal; tax teams can use reminders, customizable email templates and audit-ready reports to produce documentation on demand. Integration with ONESOURCE Determination links exemption documentation to tax calculation. Described use cases include manufacturing and distribution, government, education, nonprofits, retail and sellers operating across multiple jurisdictions. Deployment uses an application server or web container, with downloads from the ONESOURCE Customer Center. The installation guide requires Determination 5.6.2.4 or higher. Customers planning bulk uploads of customer and certificate data should also download Data File Integrator. In-application Help is available after installation and configuration, and documentation is available through the Knowledge Base. The listed platforms are API, self-hosted, web and Windows. Pricing is on request, and there is no free plan; a free demo can be requested.