Glamira Group seeks VAT compliance brilliance with Avalara

Glamira Group is a leading online jeweller selling fine, customised jewellery to consumers in approximately 65 countries. The company opened its first store in Germany, in 1999, and today has eight offices in Europe, the US and Australia. In 2013 Glamira started to design and produce its own products, and develop an ecommerce infrastructure. This transformed the business and allowed it to expand into new overseas markets.

As sales grew in new territories, Glamira found that it needed to register for VAT and file returns in multiple countries. International VAT registration can be a time-consuming process, as procedures vary from country to country and language barriers can hinder progress. The small tax team found that they were having to spend an increasing amount of time trying to keep up with VAT compliance requirements.

In 2020, the company sought advice from an acknowledged leader in the field – Avalara – and opted to outsource all of its VAT registration and VAT returns filing to Avalara VAT Returns. 

Now, the business simply uploads its transaction data each month to the secure online portal, and Avalara’s compliance team produces and files VAT returns where Glamira has obligations – currently in 13 countries. The secure portal allows Glamira to easily keep track of its filing activity.

Mag. Mitat Gürkan, International Accounting Manager at Glamira said, “Using Avalara gives us the reassurance that all our VAT returns will be filed on time. We don’t need to worry about the different deadlines, different attitudes of local tax offices, different languages or requirements in each country, or translating tax notices, to ensure we are compliant.”

Avalara VAT Returns uses Avalara’s sophisticated VAT compliance software. This means that all the transactions are put through over 100 VAT compliance checks and ensures that the team at Glamira can be confident that the treatment and calculations of VAT are accurate in every country. The multilingual compliance team can translate notices from local tax offices and provide support during audits if required. 

As every business knows, with tax, it pays to get things right. Working with Avalara means that the tax team at Glamira are not only saving time, they’re also saving money by reducing risks to the business.

Gürkan says, “With a relatively small team, it was increasingly difficult to keep on top of all the international registration and filing requirements. Now that we have the expert support from Avalara, we can focus on other important things, safe in the knowledge that we’re not at risk of international VAT fines or penalties. If we need to register in a new territory, Avalara will take care of it for us.”

He continues, “Avalara’s strength is in its extensive team with local tax knowledge.”