Sage 100

 View Only
Back to discussions
Expand all | Collapse all

CertCapture for AvaTax; maintaining Exemption Certificates

  • 1.  CertCapture for AvaTax; maintaining Exemption Certificates

    Posted 05-13-2020 11:19

    Looking for feedback on CertCapture for AvaTax, and maintaining Exemption Certificates.  @Wayne Schulz and @Jerry Norman, you appear to have worked with it based on a thread I found in 90 Minds. 

    Apparently there's no integration for Sage 100 but there is for other products.  Therefore, it appears that any new Sage 100 customers and any customer changes will need to be additionally manually duplicated in CertCapture, which seems a bit strange since CertCapture is for automating the entire exemption certificate management process.  So for one particular client who has roughly 400 out of an approximate 2,400 certificates on-file that need to be maintained on an ongoing basis, i.e. certificates that expire, I proposed the following alternate solution:

    • Use the standard Sage 100 'Exemption' functionality in Cust Maint, along with Cust Memo attachments for the Certs, and possibly a new Exemption Cert Expiration date UDF.
    • Then use A/R Memo Report or a custom report, etc. – based on Memo 'Reminder dates' for example.
    ​​

    ------------------------------
    - Brett
    ------------------------------


  • 2.  RE: CertCapture for AvaTax; maintaining Exemption Certificates

    Posted 05-14-2020 01:05
    CertCapture has cool features but integration with Sage 100 ain’t one of them. I never recommend it unless client wants to professionalize obtaining and maintaining certs. Even then, at minimum the division/customer number must be entered/imported into Avalara to trigger tax exemption on invoices.
    A solution such as the one you proposed is just as effective if not more so at a fraction of the cost.
    For years, my constant lobbying for CertCapture and AP/PO Use Tax integration which has far more potential for Sage 100 than sales tax has yielded the middle of a donut.

    ---------------------------------
    Bob Pfahnl
    General Manager - Silicon Valley Office
    DSD Business Systems
    CA
    408-641-0922
    ---------------------------------





  • 3.  RE: CertCapture for AvaTax; maintaining Exemption Certificates

    Posted 05-14-2020 08:17
    While not automated, you could output all customers to a template and import them into CertCapture on a weekly, daily, etc. basis. Again, not automated but you don't have to input them manually one at a time, nor do you have to remember to do so.

    ------------------------------
    Billy Balser
    Sage 100 Consultant
    Blytheco LLC
    Atlanta GA
    9495839500
    ------------------------------



  • 4.  RE: CertCapture for AvaTax; maintaining Exemption Certificates

    Posted 05-14-2020 09:20
    I had a customer who subscribed and then promptly stopped using it and imported a blanked "EXEMPT" to every one of their customer's exemption fields. They ultimately found it was not worthwhile since they almost universally dealt with resale accounts.

    ------------------------------
    Wayne Schulz - Schulz Consulting - 860-516-8990
    ------------------------------



  • 5.  RE: CertCapture for AvaTax; maintaining Exemption Certificates

    Posted 05-14-2020 09:53
    I have a marketing call with Laynie @ Avalara this PM.  I will bring this  ​up in during the discussion.  Nothing makes sales/marketing madder than to be told "Yes, I would sell your product but it is too kludgy and a pain to use.  My clients don't have the patience for this".

    ------------------------------
    Jeff Schwenk
    FORMER 90M Board Member
    Bottomline Software, Inc.
    Waynesboro VA
    540-221-4444
    ------------------------------

    Original Message


  • 6.  RE: CertCapture for AvaTax; maintaining Exemption Certificates

    Posted 05-22-2020 08:51
    @Jeff Schwenk, did you happen to get any feedback from Avalara during your call with them last week? ​

    ------------------------------
    - Brett
    ------------------------------

    Original Message


  • 7.  RE: CertCapture for AvaTax; maintaining Exemption Certificates

    Posted 05-22-2020 08:55
    Nothing, nada.  But thanks for the reminder as they didn't get back to me on a couple other questions either.

    ------------------------------
    Jeff Schwenk
    FORMER 90M Board Member
    Bottomline Software, Inc.
    Waynesboro VA
    540-221-4444
    ------------------------------

    Original Message


  • 8.  RE: CertCapture for AvaTax; maintaining Exemption Certificates

    Posted 05-22-2020 09:30
    @Billy Balser, I thought CertCapture didn't have import capabilities, but that would seem like a viable option.  Do I have misinformation?

    ------------------------------
    Brett Zimmerman
    Net at Work
    Greater Boston Area
    ------------------------------

    Original Message


  • 9.  RE: CertCapture for AvaTax; maintaining Exemption Certificates

    Posted 05-22-2020 11:34
    You can zip up your certificates and import the zipped file. However, you will still have to validate each certificate individually, although there are some short cuts for that also.

    CertCapture Help

    I probably misspoke in my earlier post as I was thinking about Avatax, not CertCapture. Brett, you're absolutely right, CertCapture is, at its core, a document management system. I don't think we have any clients that use CertCapture but don't use Avatax. Therefore, the direct integration is not needed. The size and complexity of your client will probably dictate if you need CertCapture. You can use Memos to capture the certificate and then use the Expiration Date to manage them. But what if your customer has multiple locations in different states. You might have to manage multiple certificates per customer and because Ship-To doesn't have memo capabilities, you'd have to use some other way of tracking. You can extrapolate the rest of the rabbit hole, but most clients don't have these needs.

    ------------------------------
    Billy Balser
    Sage 100 Consultant
    Blytheco LLC
    Atlanta GA
    9495839500
    ------------------------------

    Original Message


  • 10.  RE: CertCapture for AvaTax; maintaining Exemption Certificates

    Posted 05-22-2020 14:24
    Thanks.  Right, we would plan to create addt'l Customer memos for the Ship-to Exemption Certificates.

    ------------------------------
    Brett Zimmerman
    Net at Work
    Greater Boston Area
    ------------------------------

    Original Message


  • 11.  RE: CertCapture for AvaTax; maintaining Exemption Certificates

    Posted 03-02-2021 21:44
    @Brett Zimmerman what did you wind up doing with Certcapture?
    I have a very unsophisticated customer who was sold on Avalara and Certcapture.
    The Certcapture seems like it's going to re​quire significant attention to maintain

    My customer is being told by Avalara that in order to qualify for SST they must use Certcapture.

    Personally I don't think this particular customer will be successful with Avalara if they also have to manager certificates. The Certcapture import process is cumbersome and it doesn't help that the Avalara reps seem wholly with any question that deviates from the implementation script they seem to follow.



    ------------------------------
    Wayne Schulz - Schulz Consulting - 860-516-8990
    ------------------------------



  • 12.  RE: CertCapture for AvaTax; maintaining Exemption Certificates

    Posted 03-02-2021 22:02
    We essentially went with the alternate solution I had proposed (at top): 

    • Use the standard Sage 100 'Exemption' functionality in Cust Maint, along with Cust Memo attachments for the Certs, and possibly a new Exemption Cert Expiration date UDF.
    • Then use A/R Memo Report or a custom report, etc. – based on Memo 'Reminder dates' for example.


    ------------------------------
    Brett Zimmerman
    Net at Work
    Greater Boston Area
    ------------------------------

    Original Message


  • 13.  RE: CertCapture for AvaTax; maintaining Exemption Certificates

    Posted 03-02-2021 22:18
    Thanks. I think that’s what another of my customers did too - the work to set this up AND maintain it is really only worth it for someone with a large staff and significant exposure. M

    One thing I found researching this is that if the customer uses SST ( streamlined sales tax ) that they cannot turn on exemption at the invoice level which I think removes the option to handle exemption outside Avalara ( ie by adding an exempt number in Sage to the customer / ship to ).

    I wasn’t in on the original meeting with Avalara but am being dragged in because neither the customer or the Avalara reps ( rotating cast ) seem to know what was sold here.

    I again add my word of advice that if your customer is going with Avalara and they don’t have a CFO and two full charge accounting staff ( min ) they may struggle.

    ---------------------------------
    Wayne Schulz - Schulz Consulting - 860-516-8990
    ---------------------------------



    Original Message


  • 14.  RE: CertCapture for AvaTax; maintaining Exemption Certificates

    Posted 12-23-2024 12:05

    Replying to this message just to note that starting with Sage 100 v2021 the ability to accept and view exemption certificates within Sage 100 using Avalara and CertCapture ( now known as ECM for electronic certificate management ) is now available within the Avalara integration to Sage 100. This is new functionality since this thread was initially started back in 2020.

    Also, in order to make the integration work there is an option that we found had to be un-checked on the Avalara portal. When that option WAS checked I believe the customer was unable to upload their own certificate. 

    Just an FYI in case anyone is experiencing this issue in the future.



    ------------------------------
    Wayne Schulz
    wayne@s-consult.com
    Schulz Consulting
    (860) 516-8990
    CT
    ------------------------------



Related Content