Reconciliation overview

Before Avalara can file a return on behalf of a client, the total tax liability must be reviewed and approved for each filing period. As the partner (Firm), you’re responsible for building this workflow into your platform, enabling merchants to verify the accuracy of their tax data and approve each return for filing.

What is Reconciliation?

Reconciliation is the process of reviewing and confirming the return’s calculated liability. This includes:

Verifying the total tax collected and taxable sales
Reviewing jurisdiction-level details
Applying any necessary adjustments (for example, prepayments, credits)

Reconciliation workflow (Partner responsibilities)

The reconciliation process includes the following steps:

Retrieve open returns

Use the API to identify which returns are open and awaiting approval for the current filing cycle.

Note
Use the filings query to fetch all open returns associated with the client’s company.
Generate and display the Liability summary

Use the liabilityReports query to present a breakdown of:
- Total taxable and exempt sales
- Tax collected per jurisdiction
- Total amount due
- Any prepayments or carryover credits
This is the data that the merchant must approve before a return can be locked.
Make adjustments (if needed)

Partners may expose fields for the merchant to apply adjustments such as:
- Prepayments
- Prior-period corrections
- Jurisdiction-specific credits
Note
Adjustments must be submitted before locking the return.
Lock and approve the return

Once the merchant verifies the liability data, lock the return via the API to signal approval. This allows Avalara to begin the filing process.

Note
Returns must be locked and approved no later than the 10th of the filing month by 5:00 p.m. PT.