Best Sales Tax Software with QuickBooks Online Integrations
Having sales tax software that integrates with QuickBooks allows you to calculate and track sales tax transaction data for easy tax preparation and filing while also giving you the ability to easily add sales tax to invoices in QuickBooks. While QuickBooks has their own sales tax solution, it has some limitations that make many businesses prefer third-party sales tax software options that you can integrate with QuickBooks instead.
In this post, we’ll look at the best QuickBooks sales tax software for U.S. sellers to help you analyze and compare your options.
How to Handle Sales Tax in QuickBook Online
QuickBooks Online gives you three ways to manage your sales taxes: manually within their standard QuickBooks Online product, with their QuickBooks Sales Tax software, or via third-party sales tax software that integrates with QuickBooks Online.
- Manually within QuickBooks Online: QuickBooks has very limited sales tax functionality included in QuickBooks Online. It allows you to manually set up and edit tax agencies, rates, and settings in their portal by going to their Taxes section and editing the information directly to set up sales tax. You can do things like add combined rates, edit tax rates, and more. However, those functionalities are pretty limited and require you to manually track and update sales tax settings to remain compliant.
- QuickBooks Sales Tax: QuickBooks Sales Tax is a product that’s integrated with QuickBooks Online but has additional fees for some services. It helps you manage your sales tax compliance within QuickBooks Online by helping you calculate accurate sales tax rates, keeps track of dates when you have to file your sales taxes, and even e-files your taxes with all relevant tax agencies for additional fees.
- Third-Party Sales Tax Providers: Sales tax software providers like TaxCloud and Avalara help you stay on top of your economic nexus status in all U.S. states, register for sales taxes in states where you achieve nexus, calculate sales tax, file, and even remit your sales taxes across all platforms you use to sell. They also help with calculating sales taxes on invoices within QuickBooks and can consolidate all your sales tax data within QuickBooks with powerful QuickBooks integrations.
Learn more about setting up sales tax in Quickbooks.
Sales Tax Software for QuickBooks
In this section, we’ll review the best sales tax software for QuickBooks so you can understand what each solution offers and what kinds of businesses they’re best for.
1. TaxCloud for QuickBooks Online
Link: TaxCloud for QuickBooks Online
Pricing: TaxCloud Premium: $79/month.
Overview: TaxCloud offers sales tax software for QuickBooks with real-time integration focused on helping ecommerce and SaaS businesses manage their sales tax obligations and compliance. TaxCloud helps ensure you’re compliant in all 13,000+ sales tax jurisdictions in the U.S. by collecting the right amount of sales tax from every customer based on their location.
Key features:
- Effortless nexus tracking
- Real-time sales tax calculations for QuickBooks invoices
- Real-time sales tax calculations for ecommerce platforms
- Automated filing across states
- Real-time error feedback
- Dedicated U.S.-based customer support
- Auto-uploads of completed invoices to QuickBooks
- Flexible invoice editing
- Sales tax remittance
- Exemption certificate management
- Audit-ready reports
Best for: E-commerce businesses of all sizes.
2. Avalara AvaTax for QuickBooks
Pricing: Volume-based pricing and a la carte services. (Get the full picture with our detailed Avalara pricing analysis.)
Overview: Avalara AvaTax is a sales tax software for QuickBooks Online that can help with calculating sales tax, preparing returns, managing exemption certificates and tracking nexus obligations.
Key features:
- Rate calculation on QuickBooks and ecommerce platforms
- Sales tax return preparation (for an additional fee)
- Nexus tracking
- Sales tax remittance support
- Exemption certificate management
Downsides: Despite the ability to purchase services a la carte, Avalara tends to be more expensive than other sales tax software for QuickBooks Online. In the last year, they have also closed down products that serviced small and medium businesses to focus on serving large multinational companies and are scheduled to close another popular service for small businesses this year. Reviews for Avalara often contain complaints about how difficult it is to talk to someone from their customer service department or get help when there’s a problem.
Best for: International medium to large businesses.
See how TaxCloud compares with Avalara.
3. QuickBooks Sales Tax
Pricing: Included with QuickBooks Online subscriptions, additional fee for sales tax filing.
Overview: QuickBooks Sales Tax helps you calculate the right sales tax rate, keep track of all your sales filing dates, and file your sales taxes.
Key features:
- Sales tax calculation
- Sales tax filing (for an additional fee)
- Sales tax tracking
Downsides: QuickBooks Sales Tax’s functionalities are limited to just calculating and filing taxes on QuickBooks Online invoices. Unlike third-party sales tax software, you cannot integrate QuickBooks Sales Tax into your ecommerce store. QuickBooks Sales Tax also does not track your sales tax nexus status and alert you when you need to register for sales tax in a new state like third-party sales tax software providers do. Online reviews also suggest it’s not great at accurately calculating sales tax rates.
Best for: Companies that only invoice through QuickBooks Online.
4. TaxJar for QuickBooks
Pricing: TaxJar Professional: $1,069 annually. (Read our in-depth analysis of TaxJar pricing for more insights.)
Overview: TaxJar is a sales tax software that integrates with QuickBooks Online that’s owned by Stripe. However, it does not have sales tax functionalities within QuickBooks Online itself like TaxCloud and Avalara do. Instead, all you can do with this integration is sync your sales tax data with your QuickBooks account.
Key features:
- Data imports into QuickBooks
- Tax reports
- Autofiling
Downsides: Since TaxJar doesn’t help with invoices in QuickBooks, you would need two sales tax solutions if you need that functionality. Also, since TaxJar was bought by Stripe, customers often complain in reviews about TaxJar’s customer service being hard to contact and get support from.
Best for: Small businesses.
See how TaxCloud compares with TaxJar.
5. SOVOS QuickBooks Integration
Pricing: Varies based on features, support, and customizations.
Overview: SOVOS is a sales tax software that offers a QuickBooks Online integration that allows you to connect your sales tax support from SOVOS with QuickBooks.
Key features:
- Accurate tax calculations in QuickBooks and elsewhere
- Exemption certificate management
- Sales and use tax filing
Downsides: SOVOS doesn’t share that many details about what parts of their sales tax software integrates with QuickBooks Online and what functionalities they provide. They also don’t talk about how to integrate their sales tax software with QuickBooks but instead provide a complex integration guide for how to do so.
Best for: Global enterprises.
See how TaxCloud compares to SOVOS.
Best Sales Tax Software That Integrates with QuickBooks Online
TaxCloud is the best sales tax software that integrates with QuickBooks Online for ecommerce companies looking to streamline their sales tax compliance across multiple channels. TaxCloud simplifies your sales tax compliance by helping you end-to-end from nexus monitoring to audit support. TaxCloud is able to automate your sales tax compliance and easily and seamlessly integrate with your other software like QuickBooks so you can focus on running your business.
TaxCloud improve your user experience for QuickBooks Online in these ways:
- Auto-uploads: Automated compliance with automatic uploads of invoices to TaxCloud for timely filing and reporting. Be audit ready without all the hard work.
- Flexible invoice editing: Easily edit tax data on invoices without extra steps.
- Effortless Nexus tracking: Our nexus dashboard tracks your economic nexus status across states and alerts you when you pass that state’s thresholds so you always know your sales tax obligations.
TaxCloud’s sales tax software for QuickBooks can also:
- Monitor your tax nexus status in every jurisdiction
- Flag when you pass sales tax nexus thresholds
- Complete your sales tax registration in states where you achieve nexus
- Calculate sales tax in QuickBooks Online
- Complete your tax filings
- Remit your sales taxes
- Support you through audits
- Provide full sales tax automation across platforms