Stage 1 Financial offers compliance + choice
Business advisory firm uses Avalara solutions to let clients choose between full service and self-management for compliance needs
Results
Flexibility
Full-service options
Efficient compliance
Summary
Client challenges
- Expanded sales tax liability
Partnership focus
- Avalara Managed Returns for Accountants
- Accountant Referral Partner
ONE SHARED GOAL
Our partners range from globally known enterprises to startups and entrepreneurs. All of them want to impart value to their clients with one of the industry-leading sales tax solutions from Avalara.
Tax compliance that grows with your clients
Avalara tax registration, calculation, filing, and document management products work together and scale, enabling your clients to maintain tax compliance as their business grows and evolves.
Integration with your clients’ systems — and yours
With prebuilt integrations and extractors, your clients can use Avalara as a single source of tax data across their systems — or you can use Avalara in your own systems to manage compliance for your clients.
Tax expertise from tax automation experts
Let Avalara do the heavy lifting so you can focus on your clients’ growth, including revenue generation and product development.
Results
- Flexibility
- Full-service options
- Efficient compliance
Company overview
Customer
Stage 1 Financial
Industry
Accounting
Tax type
Sales and use
Stage 1 Financial is a professional business advisory firm that offers a variety of financial management, reporting, operations, and compliance services to investor-backed startups. One of the firm’s core growth services is sales tax management; Stage 1 serves companies ranging from pre-revenue to $100 million in sales, which means the level of tax complexity can vary widely from client to client. The firm has offices in Dallas, Anaheim, Denver, and New York, with core verticals including health and beauty, food and beverage, and fashion.
Tax challenges
Startups that have (or are seeking) funding from outside sources typically have more stringent reporting requirements than family businesses or partnerships — requirements that are often dictated by investors, financial institutions, and/or regulators. It’s a big part of why these companies turn to firms such as Stage 1 for support with critical business functions such as accounting, CFO services, and corporate tax compliance.
Increasingly, that support includes state and local tax compliance. In the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2018 ruling in S. Dakota v. Wayfair, individual states began passing economic nexus laws that require companies to collect and remit sales and use taxes based on their economic activity in a given jurisdiction — broadly expanding the tax obligations of many businesses, especially those selling online.
Faced with navigating a tax landscape that includes over 13,000 sales and use tax jurisdictions in the U.S. alone, and seeking to reduce both the risk of penalties for noncompliance and the administrative hassle of compliance, a growing number of these startups have sought assistance from firms like Stage 1.
The firm offers two core options for clients when it comes to sales and use tax: For startups with in-house staff that can manage compliance, Stage 1 serves in an advisory role and refers the client directly to Avalara for automation solutions.
Meanwhile, for clients that want to fully outsource the compliance process, Stage 1 will manage it all using Avalara Managed Returns for Accountants. This allows the client to be almost completely hands-off as Stage 1 handles implementation, filings, and ongoing compliance needs on their behalf. Clients can even pass along any notices or mail they receive from taxing entities, knowing Stage 1 will take care of it.
Either way, according to Stage 1 State and Local Tax Senior Accountant Andrea Sallie, clients appreciate having access to Avalara’s powerful end-to-end solution, which covers sales tax registration, to collecting taxes, filing returns, remitting funds, and even managing exemptions — all while keeping track of ever-changing regulations.
Why Avalara?
A longtime leader in tax automation, Avalara provides holistic compliance solutions that help firms manage sales tax compliance processes for their clients of all types — increasing accuracy, reducing the need for data entry, and lowering the risk of errors and costly penalties in the event of an audit.
Adrian Rivers, a Stage 1 tax attorney who leads a team of sales tax experts, recognized the potential of Avalara solutions after joining the firm in 2021. Because they integrate with leading business applications and import tax data directly from client accounting, ecommerce, point of sale, and other platforms, these solutions provide the flexibility that is so vital to the wide range of clients Stage 1 serves — and they can scale and evolve as those clients do, too.
Partnership focus
- Avalara Managed Returns for Accountants
- Accountant Referral Partner
Client challenges
- Expanded sales tax liability
ONE SHARED GOAL
Our partners range from globally known enterprises to startups and entrepreneurs. All of them want to impart value to their clients with one of the industry-leading sales tax solutions from Avalara.
Tax compliance that grows with your clients
Avalara tax registration, calculation, filing, and document management products work together and scale, enabling your clients to maintain tax compliance as their business grows and evolves.
Integration with your clients’ systems — and yours
With prebuilt integrations and extractors, your clients can use Avalara as a single source of tax data across their systems — or you can use Avalara in your own systems to manage compliance for your clients.
Tax expertise from tax automation experts
Let Avalara do the heavy lifting so you can focus on your clients’ growth, including revenue generation and product development.
“Most of our clients don’t really want to be involved in the sales tax piece, they’re busy with the seeding and the funding and all the glamorous parts of the business. Sales tax is not really considered the glamorous piece.”
—Andrea Sallie
State and Local Tax Senior Accountant, Stage 1 Financial
“Most of our clients don’t really want to be involved in the sales tax piece, they’re busy with the seeding and the funding and all the glamorous parts of the business. Sales tax is not really considered the glamorous piece.”
—Andrea Sallie
State and Local Tax Senior Accountant, Stage 1 Financial
Results
Most Stage 1 clients want to hand the compliance process off completely, Andrea says, which makes sense — some don’t have the in-house staff or expertise to manage it effectively, while others would rather put their resources toward more impactful efforts, such as sales and growth.
Stage 1 gives those clients the freedom to make that choice, secure in the knowledge that their compliance is in good hands. In turn, the Avalara Managed Returns for Accountants system empowers the firm to provide its full-service offering efficiently, providing Stage 1 with the ability to promote an all-encompassing solution for its clients and achieve its own growth.
The firm benefits even when referring clients directly to Avalara, burnishing its standing as a trusted advisor that delivers expert insights.
“Our goal is to help clients improve and maintain operational and financial efficiencies, until they have a successful exit from stage one of their business growth,” Adrian says. “This means they are either purchased by a larger entity, or they have grown to the point where they can take charge of their own financial management in house.”
Thanks to the efficiencies possible with automation from Avalara, both Stage 1 and its clients are well positioned for the next step.
