Branded merchandise company simplifies sales tax compliance while saving time and more
than $100,000 annually

DURHAM, N.C., July 8, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Avalara, Inc., the agentic AI leader in global tax and compliance, today announced that Brand Fuel, a North Carolina-based branded merchandise and promotional products company, is leveraging Avalara AvaTax and Avalara Returns integrated with commonsku to automate multistate sales tax compliance across its ecommerce and fulfillment operations.

During the pandemic, Brand Fuel shifted from centralized trade show shipments to individual drop-ship orders, creating sales tax nexus in multiple states and adding significant tax complexity. Manual processes and ERP-based tax calculations could not accurately account for jurisdiction-specific tax rules, especially in areas where ZIP codes spanned multiple tax authorities. As order volume grew, relying on a full-time employee to calculate taxes manually became unsustainable.

To simplify compliance and support ecommerce growth, Brand Fuel implemented Avalara AvaTax and Avalara Returns through its existing commonsku ERP. The integrated solution automates sales tax calculations, returns filing, and remittance using rooftop-level geolocation, improving accuracy, reducing manual work, and scaling with the business.

“Implementing Avalara with commonsku saves Brand Fuel an estimated 65 hours of work per week and roughly $100,000 annually in costs,” said Allison McLain, General Manager at Brand Fuel. “Now our team is focused on supporting customers and growing the business versus spending time on manual tax and compliance processes.”

With Avalara integrated into its commonsku environment, Brand Fuel has reduced manual work, improved tax consistency, and streamlined order processing by minimizing exceptions and corrections. The company now has a stronger foundation for international expansion, with scalable tax compliance processes that grow alongside the business.

Learn more about how Brand Fuel uses Avalara to simplify tax compliance and support ecommerce growth here.

About Avalara
Avalara is the agentic AI platform for global tax and compliance. For more than two decades, Avalara has built one of the most expansive libraries of tax content and integrations in the industry, processing more than 54 billion transactions annually and supporting millions of businesses worldwide. The company’s purpose-built AI agents automate end-to-end compliance with greater precision, from tax calculations and return filings to exemption certificate management and beyond. For more information, visit Avalara.com.

About Brand Fuel
Brand Fuel is a free-spirited brand merchandising agency and web services firm with three locations/showrooms: Raleigh, NC, Va. Beach, VA, and Boston, MA. Brand Fuel coordinates the selection, design, decoration, and production of logo merchandise for clients locally and worldwide. Since its inception, Brand Fuel has earned Best Places to Work, Best Website, PPAI 100, Best Showroom, Best National Marketing Event awards, and is recognized in the top .05% of the industry in revenues. Our grandest initiative and representation of company pride is our B Corp Certification, where we have achieved verified social, environmental, and governance standards.

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SOURCE Avalara, Inc.