Every year, we partner with the SaaS industry’s most innovative companies. Through our events and network, we help them achieve better brand visibility, build pipeline that converts, and make powerful connections. In doing so, we also help SaaStock attendees find the right solutions to help them grow their businesses faster.
In this series, we’re showcasing our Partners and how they’re changing the face of SaaS as we know it.
Today, we’re putting the spotlight on automated tax compliance software, Avalara. On a mission to make tax compliance easier for any business, Avalara is now used by over 41,000+ businesses and government customers in over 75 countries.
We spoke to Avalara Senior Team Manager (Tax Technology) Ben Faust to find out more about how the tax landscape has changed for SaaS and how Avalara has adapted to meet those needs.
Helping SaaS businesses manage tax compliance internationally
Avalara specialises in helping companies navigate the tax complexities that come with selling software internationally. These complexities include managing regulations across jurisdictions that differ depending on what you sell, who you sell to, and how you sell it.
Unlike in other industries, B2B SaaS companies can run into tax compliance issues at any stage in their journey because they are inherently global, Ben explained:
“One of the beauties of launching a SaaS business is how quickly you can scale across borders. You can sell everywhere, internationally from day dot…If you’re looking at selling to international companies that way, you are going to encounter tax complications pretty quickly.”
Managed independently, tax compliance is time consuming and complicated with lots of moving parts and multiple stakeholders (some jurisdictions even require a tax representative on the ground in that country). Avalara looks to streamline the entire journey so its customers can focus on generating revenue.
Adapting to an increasingly complex tax landscape
The last few years have presented both opportunities and challenges for SaaS. Operating in the tax space has added another layer of nuance for Avalara to navigate.
2018: South Dakota vs Wayfair
In 2018, SaaS was growing at a rapid rate and it triggered changes to tax systems globally. Perhaps the most notable was the South Dakota vs Wayfair case in the US, which had huge implications for sales tax regulations in America. Ben explained:
“It meant that every single business that was selling into the United States, regardless of where they were based, all of a sudden had to start adding taxes to their invoices.”
This change presented a “real windfall moment” for Avalara because companies of all sizes, all over the world, suddenly had to consider their tax liabilities in the US.
2020: Brexit and the Covid-19 pandemic
In January 2020, businesses were faced with the impact of Brexit. This, again, created opportunities for Avalara as it brought a lot of tax complications both in EMEA regions and for US businesses selling into Europe and the UK.
Shortly after, the Covid-19 pandemic took hold. Despite market turbulence, Avalara was able to keep momentum and continue growing because its customers still needed to pay their taxes.
2022/2023: Pandemic aftermath
Post-Covid, as we know, the SaaS industry experienced a slow down. In response, Avalara needed to rethink its expansion strategy, while staying true to its mission:
“Like a lot of other businesses, we focused on expanding horizontally. With the laser focus of simplifying taxes but doing it for smaller and bigger businesses than before.”
Ben told us that a big part of this change was keeping that mission at heart and looking at acquiring companies, building products, and onboarding partners that could help them deliver it more efficiently.
“Despite the headwinds that we’ve seen in recent years… Avalara has continued to grow pretty significantly throughout.”
Today, Avalara leverages 1,200+ signed partner integrations across ecommerce, ERP, and other billing systems to power tax calculations, document management, tax return filing, and tax content access. In addition, Avalara also offers professional services such as support, account management, and tax services to help customers better understand their tax liability.
Building relationships at SaaStock
“We’ve had some really good conversations so far. [It’s been] Really interesting to have different levels of discussions with different types of founders and businesses that are here.”
As three time sponsors, we feel at home seeing Avalara’s bold brand orange and signature swag on our show floor. SaaS is the company’s largest sector, and they come to SaaStock to help them:
- Have positive conversations with midmarket and enterprise customers and prospects looking to manage tax compliance as they expand globally.
- Build brand awareness amongst smaller companies that will face these challenges as they grow.
- Strengthen partnerships. As a core part of Avalara’s growth strategy, the team uses SaaStock as a chance to strengthen and promote relationships with software and fintech partners.
“A really cool part of SaaStock is engaging with partners. And partnerships being really crucial to today’s SaaS business and how you’re going to evolve and meet the challenges of today’s market context—my advice is don’t come here just to talk to founders. Come here to build partnerships, meet your partners, and see what’s going on in that space.”
Accelerate your growth with SaaStock Partnership opportunities
At SaaStock, we’ve spent eight years working with Partners to make sure our events deliver impactful return on investment.
Work closely with our team on a bespoke package that will help you build pipeline that converts, generate brand awareness, and make the connections that will help transform your business, including:
- Brand visibility across our events from a show floor booth to fringe event sponsorship.
- Targeted networking experiences that guarantee impactful meetings with the right people.
- Tailored opportunities to engage with a focused audience including boardroom sessions for C-suite operators and workshop opportunities for your ICP.
- A VIP meeting service to pair you with your ideal customer, optimising your time at the event for maximum impact.
Find out more – Get in touch with our team today.
