Avalara Debuts Sales Tax Cloud Connectors for IBM i

September 24, 2013 Alex Woodie

Avalara last month announced that its cloud-based sales tax calculation and compliance solution, AvaTax, has been certified for use with Infor ERP XA (MAPICS) and the IBM i platform in general. This is the first time Avalara has supported the IBM i platform with its cloud-based sales tax solutions, although it previously supported the platform with its on-premise software.

Specifically, Avalara said it has successfully tested and validated the performance of a pair of new tax calculation connectors–dubbed AvaTax Calc–that connect its AvaTax cloud service with the Infor ERP XA software and the IBM i platform.

Putting sales tax calculations and rules in the cloud is a good thing, Avalara says, because it frees up resources in organizations’ accounting and IT departments. Instead of dedicating resources to tracking changes to tax laws across more than 60,000 tax jurisdictions in all 50 states, US Territories and Possessions, and Canadian provinces, and then implementing those rate, rule, and boundary changes in a business application, Avalara does it for you.

Avalara supports hundreds of other business applications with AvaTax, but the only IBM i application on that list was the credit card processing software from Curbstone. It did, however, have a broader network of certified IBM i connections for SalestaxII, an on-premise tax calculation solution that was developed by Independent Systems, which Avalara acquired in 2008.

But SalestaxII had its limits and “typically required additional IT support and ongoing updates to remain compliant with ever-changing sales tax regulations,” Avalara says of its own (albeit old and apparently unsupported) product.

Avalara also offers an IBM i software development kit (SDK) that allows users to develop a report generator for other IBM i applications. This Avalara-created SDK provides users with a “quick and easy way to integrate with a long list of established business management systems,” the company says.

Before being acquired by Avalara, Independent Systems offered pre-built connectors for a range of IBM i ERP systems, including Infor‘s ERP LX (BPCS) and MAC-PAC XE (formerly from TDCI), VAI‘s S2K, the CMS (formerly iVP) package from Epicor (formerly Solarsoft, and CMS Systems way before that), ASW from IBS, and Oracle‘s JD Edwards World and EnterpriseOne.

Both AvaCalc connectors provide access to AvaTax Returns, which can automatically process e-file, hard-copy and streamlined sales tax returns for customers, Avalara says.