
Starting a small business can sometimes leave you up your neck in government red tape. If you are a retail operation that must collect sales tax, the process of keeping your books correctly can be challenging and cumbersome using conventional methods. Avalara’s mission is to make the process of collecting and dispersing sales taxes to the correct localities simple and clear cut. Trustfile is a new product released by Avalara which ensures small to medium sized businesses are collecting the correct amount of sales tax on each of their transactions. What’s the best part about TrustFile? It’s free!
TrustFile has compiled a database of over 12,000 tax jurisdictions. The solution prides itself on being able to fully integrate into Amazon and Paypal so that merchants can accurate collect the correct sales tax on the items they are already selling online. This functionality is designed to save organizations money on accounting fees as well as the time spent trying to figuring it all out. As regulations change, TrustFile automatically adapts to the governments requirements. Since TrustFile will run in the cloud, users of the software will have almost no barriers to entry on this product.
TrustFile is being offered for free for now but Avalara plans on releasing a pro version which will have additional functionality. At this time, Avalara has not announced which features and functionality will be available. The creation of TrustFile was made easier by Avalara’s acquisition of UPC Master. This gave Avalara full access to millions of product codes which help the software determine the correct tax amount. Avalara also received $30 million in funding earlier this year which has certainly helped accelerate the company’s growth. TrustFile is being debuted ahead of Amazon’s announcement to collect taxes on items sold in Florida on 05/01/2014. Reports estimate that nearly 60% of Americans must pay sales taxes on items they buy on Amazon. TrustFile’s timely arrival to market will likely be welcomed with open arms.