Boosting compliance confidence: How Avalara is evolving ECM to deliver efficiency, accuracy, and ROI

In today's fast-moving business environment, one wrong exemption certificate can cost more than just money - it can erode customer trust and trigger audits. For businesses that rely on accurate exemption certificate management, the compliance stakes are high.

That's why Avalara Exemption Certificate Management (ECM) is continually evolving with the goal of helping your team simplify workflows, boost accuracy, and reduce compliance risk.

Continuous innovation for measurable results

Avalara commissioned Forrester Consulting to conduct a Total Economic Impact™ study. As highlighted in the study, Avalara ECM can deliver meaningful operational and financial outcomes for its users. Forrester created and analyzed a composite organization based on customer interviews, and found that Avalara ECM enables organizations to significantly reduce the administrative burden associated with exemption certificate management, all while improving audit readiness and customer satisfaction.

Let's take a closer look at how recent changes to ECM can help support your business goals:

1. Enhanced automation and workflow efficiency

Manual certificate validation is one of the most time-consuming tasks in compliance. With intelligent automation, ECM handles certificate tracking, renewal alerts, and AI-assisted document validation. This goes a long way toward reducing human error and freeing up your team to focus on strategic tax initiatives.

We're also adding a new natural language model to ECM, which means searchability just got easier. You'll be able to use simple phrases like "show me expiring certificates in Texas" to find the information you need.

According to the TEI study, the composite organization reduced time spent on certificate collection and validation by 80%, saving hundreds of hours annually.

2. Seamless integration for streamlined operations

ECM integrates with enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, ecommerce platforms, and point-of-sale (POS) tools to sync certificate data in real time. This helps to ensure exemptions are properly applied right at the point of sale during transactions, reducing tax miscalculations and helping to prevent costly rebills.

Forrester reports that integration with Avalara ECM helped reduce overpayments and mitigate risks associated with manual classification of tax-exempt transactions.

3. Centralized reporting and audit readiness

The ECM dashboard gives organizations a single source of truth for exemption status, renewal cycles, and audit exposure. Its search and reporting tools help streamline audit prep and provide greater transparency across the tax function.

In the TEI study, companies using ECM accelerated audit response times and reduced the stress and cost of audit cycles thanks to centralized, searchable certificate data.

4. User experience and customization that supports scale

Avalara ECM's intelligent certificate selection assistant guides users to complete the correct forms the first time. Its customizable workflows support unique business needs and helps to reduce fulfillment delays, rebills, and buyer frustration.

These updates improve internal efficiency and help you build stronger relationships with tax-exempt customers.

5. Scalable compliance and enterprise-grade security

Avalara ECM is SOC 2 compliant and built to scale from small business to enterprise use. As tax regulations continue to evolve, ECM keeps businesses in step with changing laws, reducing compliance risk and protecting sensitive certificate data.

Forrester estimates that improved compliance processes and reduced penalties contributed significantly to the composite organization's cost savings over a three-year period.

What that means for you

Avalara ECM isn't just a tool - it's a strategic investment. The Forrester TEI study found that organizations realized a risk-adjusted ROI of 180% over three years, with a payback period of less than six months.

The right exemption management solution can mean efficiency gains, reduced audit exposure, fewer invoice errors, and improved customer satisfaction for your business.

Looking ahead

Avalara continues to invest in Exemption Certificate Management based on customer feedback and regulatory changes. Our enhancements are more than product updates - they're part of our commitment to helping businesses like yours reduce risk, increase efficiency, and empower tax teams to deliver more value. In fact, Avalara is currently expanding its AI-assisted validation capabilities within Exemption Certificate Management to support hundreds of certificate types - including the most frequently used resale and exemption forms. This update will enable businesses like yours to automatically verify and validate high-volume, common-use certificates with more accuracy and speed.

Learn more about the Forrester TEI study and discover for yourself how Avalara Exemption Certificate Management can reduce your compliance burden when you schedule a personalized demo.