Congratulations ECE Solutions, Avalara’s January Gimme 5 Spotlight Customer

“That’s a no-no,” says Sherri McLean, Order and Maintenance Contract Manager at ECE Solutions in Chicago, about the five to six hours a week she was spending on taxes.

That was before the company’s accounting firm discovered and recommended Avalara AvaTax, a cloud-based sales tax automation solution for businesses of all sizes. Now McLean, Avalara’s January Gimme 5 Spotlight Customer, spends far less than an hour a month on taxes. “It’s less stress on me,” she says.

And she’s been able to use the time wisely.

“Make more money. Do more sales,” she says with a hearty laugh on making good use of the time that AvaTax gave her back. “We are a software resale company, and I manage the order desk, and I also handle the maintenance contracts that generate the revenue for the company. So I can spend more time doing that to ensure that the revenue is continuous.”

As January’s Spotlight Customer, McLean earned ECE Solutions a free year of AvaTax and $5,000 cash. The latter was spent, in part, on an “escape room” challenge for the company’s 18 employees. “It was a great team building exercise on how to rely on each other,” she says.

And knowing she can rely on AvaTax “takes a whole lot of guesswork out of the tax game.” She sums it up as having “peace of mind.”