Avalara
Website:
avalara.com
Job details:
What You'll Do
The
Senior Analyst, VCS plays a critical role in strengthening the accuracy, scalability, and AI-enabled execution of Avalara’s U.S. Voluntary Compliance Services (VCS) operations across multiple jurisdictions and complex client environments. As client complexity, historical exposure, and voluntary disclosure volumes increase, this role ensures consistent SLA performance, reduces compliance and penalty risk, and embeds AI-driven workflow improvements that enhance productivity and quality. This individual contributor is expected to operate as a Bar Raiser, elevating execution rigor, mentoring junior analysts, and applying AI in measurable ways to improve speed, insight, and operational scale across the VCS lifecycle (from transactional data intake and nexus validation through data manipulation, analysis, processing, and reporting of historical returns prepared for filing).
How This Role Elevates Avalara
For Customers
- Delivers high-accuracy, on-time preparation of historical Sales & Use tax returns for filing — through data manipulation, analysis, processing, and reporting — across multiple jurisdictions, along with voluntary disclosure submissions, proactively mitigating exposure to penalties, interest, and audit risk.
- Acts as a senior point of contact for customers and their project managers, and as liaison with state taxing authorities for state voluntary disclosure / amnesty programs, providing clear status communication and documentation that help customers understand risk remediation and the outcome of their VCS engagements.
For the Business
- Improves operational leverage by:
- Reducing manual effort in transactional data validation, reconciliation, pSTRA preparation, and notice handling.
- Standardizing VCS status, nexus, and exposure reporting.
- Accelerating turnaround for large historical scopes and complex multi-state disclosures.
- Supports margin and discount discipline by minimizing re-work, return revisions, and avoidable escalations.
For the Team
- Raises talent density through:
- Mentorship and coaching of juniors on VCS standards, nexus and exposure judgment, and client communication.
- Structured review and quality control discipline for voluntary compliance spreadsheets and historical returns.
- Sharing templates, SOPs, and AI-enabled best practices that uplift the whole team.
For Our AI-First Strategy
- Improves turnaround time per voluntary disclosure / historical project.
- Increases accuracy and consistency across returns, disclosure spreadsheets, and periods.
- Raises analyst productivity and independence by leveraging AI-enabled workflows already defined for the team.
What Your Responsibilities Will Be
Responsibilities (Outcome-Based Ownership)
- Own end-to-end preparation, processing, analysis, and quality assurance of historical Sales & Use tax data and returns for multi-period, multi-jurisdiction VCS engagements — including custom pSTRA, Tax Summary Reports, and voluntary compliance spreadsheets submitted to state taxing authorities — so returns are accurate and ready to be filed, delivering ≥99% accuracy and 98–100% on-time SLA adherence.
- Independently manage complex reconciliations and variance analysis between client transactional data, prior filings, and proposed disclosure returns, including altering or adding transaction data where required while maintaining clear audit trails.
- Serve as the senior primary point of contact for customers and their project managers, and as liaison with state taxing authorities for state voluntary disclosure / amnesty programs, owning sensitive negotiations and status conversations.
- Maintain a 24-hour turnaround time for critical client escalations and compliance inquiries related to voluntary disclosures, historical returns, notices, or exposure questions.
- Demonstrate deep understanding of complex, historical transaction-level data and U.S. Sales & Use tax law, ensuring data is accurately validated, troubleshot, transformed, and reported — including nexus setup — so historical returns and disclosures are prepared and ready to be filed.
- Improve document and data retrieval turnaround time by 15–25% using AI-supported research, pattern recognition, and tracking tools.
- Standardize weekly VCS status, nexus, risk, and exposure reporting using AI-enabled formatting and summarization tools.
- Identify and implement at least one scalable AI-enabled workflow enhancement within the first 6 months, with clear measurement of productivity or quality impact.
- Manage relationships with customers, project managers, state taxing authorities, and internal/external Avalara partners throughout the VCS lifecycle to ensure alignment on scope, timelines, risks, and outcomes, including proactive de-escalation through direct customer calls when needed.
- Mentor I1/I2 analysts in independent case handling, nexus and exposure analysis, high-quality documentation, client-ready narratives, and effective, compliant AI usage.
- Maintain and continuously improve SOP documentation for VCS (data intake, nexus validation, reconciliation, pSTRA preparation, disclosure submission, return preparation for filing, notice handling, and closeout) aligned to client contracts, jurisdictional rules, and Avalara standards.
- Provide proactive support to CAMs and Sales to help drive successful voluntary compliance and remediation sales cycles, including answering scoping questions, joining key client calls, and providing clear, data-backed delivery perspectives.
AI Bar Raiser Expectations
The Senior Analyst, VCS must demonstrate exceptional applied AI capability that produces measurable operational impact, not just experimentation. This includes:
- Embedding AI tools into transactional data cleansing and enrichment, reconciliation and variance explanation, nexus and historical exposure summaries, pSTRA preparation, and VCS escalation workflows.
- Quantifying impact (e.g., time saved per engagement, reduction in manual review hours, improved turnaround time per disclosure period, fewer rework cycles).
- Applying AI responsibly while exercising professional judgment, especially for compliance-sensitive topics such as taxability, nexus determinations, exposure estimates, and final return values.
- Sharing AI best practices (prompts, workflows, validation steps) to elevate team capability and embed them into SOPs.
- Continuously identifying automation opportunities aligned to efficiency, risk reduction, scalability, and consistent client experience.
Casual or convenience-based AI usage does not meet Avalara’s AI Bar Raiser standard.
12-Month Success Signals
Within 12 Months, The Senior Analyst, VCS Will Demonstrate
- Sustained ≥99% preparation accuracy across their VCS portfolio (returns prepared for filing, disclosure spreadsheets, amendments, and corrections).
- 98–100% on-time performance for agreed VCS SLAs, including during peak workload and complex multi-state disclosures.
- 15–25% reduction in document and data retrieval turnaround time through AI-enabled research, tracking, and templated requests.
- Measurable reduction in re-work and re-opened engagements via robust validation controls, better upstream scoping, and AI-supported checks.
- At least one implemented AI-driven workflow enhancement (e.g., automated variance narratives, pSTRA/template builders, data-mapping accelerators) delivering quantifiable productivity gains.
- Documented AI and process best practices adopted across the VCS team and incorporated into SOPs.
- Strong independent handling of complex escalations, including high-exposure periods, nuanced jurisdictional and nexus rules, and sensitive client and state-authority scenarios, with minimal senior intervention, including proactive de-escalation through direct client calls and clear, solution-focused communication.
What You’ll Need To Be Successful
- Bachelor’s degree in Commerce, Accounting, Taxation, Finance, or related field; or MBA in Finance.
- 3–4+ years of U.S. indirect tax / Sales & Use tax compliance experience, ideally including voluntary disclosure, amnesty, or remediation programs.
- Demonstrated experience managing multi-jurisdiction return portfolios and handling compliance escalations (e.g., notices, penalty and interest issues, nexus questions).
- Advanced MS Excel proficiency (complex formulas, pivot tables, macros/VBA, large data-set handling) and demonstrated ability to work with complex historical transaction data to prepare accurate disclosures and historical returns ready for filing.
- Proven experience using AI tools to improve operational speed, quality, or scale (for example, in data analysis, documentation, or reporting workflows).
- Strong written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to explain complex historical tax, nexus, and exposure topics in clear, client-friendly language to customers, project managers, and state taxing authorities.
Avalara is an AI-first Company
AI is embedded in our workflows, decision-making, and products. Success here requires embracing AI as an essential capability.
- You’ll bring experience using AI and AI-related technologies, ready to thrive here.
- You’ll apply AI every day to business challenges - improving efficiency, contributing solutions, and driving results for your team, our company, and our customers.
- You’ll grow with AI by staying curious about new trends and best practices, and by sharing what you learn so others can benefit too.
How We’ll Take Care Of You
Total Rewards
In addition to a great compensation package, paid time off, and paid parental leave, many Avalara employees are eligible for bonuses.
Health & Wellness
Benefits vary by location but generally include private medical, life, and disability insurance.
Inclusive culture and diversity
Avalara strongly supports diversity, equity, and inclusion, and is committed to integrating them into our business practices and our organizational culture. We also have a total of 8 employee-run resource groups, each with senior leadership and exec sponsorship.
What You Need To Know About Avalara
We’re defining the relationship between tax and tech.
We’ve already built an industry-leading cloud compliance platform, processing over 54 billion customer API calls and over 6.6 million tax returns a year. Our growth is real - we're a billion dollar business - and we’re not slowing down until we’ve achieved our mission - to be part of every transaction in the world.
We’re bright, innovative, and disruptive, like the orange we love to wear. It captures our quirky spirit and optimistic mindset. It shows off the culture we’ve designed, that empowers our people to win. We’ve been different from day one. Join us, and your career will be too.
We’re An Equal Opportunity Employer
Supporting diversity and inclusion is a cornerstone of our company — we don’t want people to fit into our culture, but to enrich it. All qualified candidates will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, creed, religion, age, gender, national orientation, disability, sexual orientation, US Veteran status, or any other factor protected by law. If you require any reasonable adjustments during the recruitment process, please let us know.
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