Oxbo International reaps the benefits of sales tax automation
Results
Improved processes
Managed exemptions
Employee satisfaction
Summary
Results
- Improved processes
- Managed exemptions
- Employee satisfaction
Tax challenges
- Exemption management
- Company growth
- Disparate systems
- Employee burnout
Products used
Avalara AvaTax
Dynamically delivers sales and use tax calculations, based on the latest rules and rates in our tax engine, to a shopping cart or invoicing system at the time of purchase.
Avalara CertCapture
A highly scalable solution to securely collect, store, and manage tax documents in the cloud and automate exemptions at checkout.
Benefits
- Reduced exemption certificates and processing time by 40%
- Eliminated 150 hours of sales tax work every quarter
- Improved team morale as focus shifts to more meaningful work
Industry type
Manufacturing
Meet customer needs and stay compliant when you’re collecting sales tax or exemption certificates.
Company overview
Customer
Oxbo International
Industry
Manufacturing
Tax type
Sales and use
Integration
QAD, proprietary ecommerce system
Oxbo International is a world leader in manufacturing, selling, and supporting harvesting machinery. Headquartered in Byron, New York, Oxbo has domestic operations in seven states and international activities in Brazil and Europe. In recent decades, the company has grown significantly through mergers and acquisitions and expects that trend to continue based on the strength of its capabilities, people, and product innovations.
Tax challenges
Managing sales tax complexity was a full-time job with high turnover. “We had to have someone dedicated almost full time to watching the rules in each county, municipality, and state where we sell,” says Barb Mika, who supervises sales accounting for the company. “The error rate was very sizable ... we had been audited quite a few times.”
Oxbo was managing sales tax through its ERP system, which was tedious and time-consuming. “We had to do all of the research into each state’s tax laws that apply to agriculture,” says Barb. “Then add each jurisdiction individually into our disparate systems and link them together … the setup was quite horrific for each state. Our systems really confined us.”
Without an automated system in place to manage exemption certificates, audits were especially challenging. “Some of the certificates were very old, some got lost … we didn’t have a process in place to ask clients for updated forms,” Barb explains. As the company’s customer base grew rapidly, the problem was exacerbated.
Why Avalara?
When looking for a sales tax automation solution, Oxbo got recommendations from some of their larger customers who were also resellers. Avalara soon emerged as a front-runner.
“The team at Avalara showed a remarkable willingness to dig in and figure out how to handle our specific set of needs,” Barb recalls. “We built a sandbox environment focused on California and Washington, the two states who give us the most grief. After eight or nine months of testing, we were surprised at the results.”
Oxbo was able to integrate both Avalara AvaTax and Avalara CertCapture with their ERP system, QAD.
Customer
Oxbo International
Industry
Manufacturing
Tax type
Sales and use
Integration
QAD, proprietary ecommerce system
Tax challenges
- Exemption management
- Company growth
- Disparate systems
- Employee burnout
Products used
Avalara AvaTax
Dynamically delivers sales and use tax calculations, based on the latest rules and rates in our tax engine, to a shopping cart or invoicing system at the time of purchase.
Avalara CertCapture
A highly scalable solution to securely collect, store, and manage tax documents in the cloud and automate exemptions at checkout.
Benefits
- Reduced exemption certificates and processing time by 40%
- Eliminated 150 hours of sales tax work every quarter
- Improved team morale as focus shifts to more meaningful work
Industry type
Manufacturing
Meet customer needs and stay compliant when you’re collecting sales tax or exemption certificates.
“We wanted to focus on what we do best, and that’s selling agricultural machinery. We didn’t want to have staff dedicated to managing sales tax.”
—Barb Mika
Sales Accounting Supervisor
“We wanted to focus on what we do best, and that’s selling agricultural machinery. We didn’t want to have staff dedicated to managing sales tax.”
—Barb Mika
Sales Accounting Supervisor
Results
Rate accuracy has improved while the need to duplicate data entry into disparate, disconnected systems has disappeared. “We have everything in one place now,” says Barb. “When you have companies coming together through mergers and acquisitions, it’s nice to know we have one spot where we keep everything. And that’s within Avalara.”
Barb reports morale on her team has improved immeasurably, since the tedious and time-consuming burden of managing sales tax and exemptions has been lifted.
“We’ve been able to put people on more meaningful work, like asset management and upgrading other systems,” Barb says proudly. “We didn’t want to have staff dedicated to managing sales tax. We want to focus on what we do best, and that’s selling agricultural machinery.”
