Clearco Partners with Kintsugi to Make Sales Tax Easier for Brands

Clearco partners with businesses that provide valuable services to ecommerce brands, and sales tax automation software is a crucial part of this goal. That’s why Clearco has partnered with Kintsugi, a San Francisco-based startup that helps ecommerce businesses automate their sales tax compliance.

Kintsugi’s simple dashboard comes loaded with powerful AI-enabled features, from full-service filings to physical mail management and everything in between. With excellent customer service and flat-rate, transparent pricing, Kintsugi is now the top-rated sales tax app on the Shopify App Store.

What is Clearco?

A leading funding solution for ecommerce brands looking to manage their cash flow, Clearco provides these businesses with working capital to fund invoices and receipts for inventory, marketing spend, and more.

The partnership with Kintsugi means Clearco brands, specifically those selling on Shopify, will receive 50% off their first month with Kintsugi. Given Shopify’s planned deprecation of Avalara’s AvaTax next month, Clearco brands using AvaTax on Shopify need to begin their transition plans now or risk non-compliance.

What Is Sales Tax Automation and How Does It Impact Ecommerce Brands?

Sales tax automation is the process of using software to streamline and automate how you calculate, file, and manage taxes for your business. With hundreds of different rates for a single product and thousands of product categories to keep track of, sales tax automation is a no-brainer for businesses operating in multiple jurisdictions. In other words, if you’re selling across state lines (or international borders), automating sales tax isn’t just nice-to-have for ecommerce brands – it’s essential.

The good news is that AI-driven tax software can now do much of the heavy lifting that once kept your finance team up late. A modern sales tax platform can cover end-to-end compliance – from tracking where you owe tax, to calculating the right rates, to preparing returns and filing them – essentially putting your sales tax on autopilot. And unlike legacy systems that often required lots of babysitting (or suffered from siloed data), today’s solutions use advanced integrations and intelligence to continuously improve accuracy.

In this AI-driven landscape, companies that switch to automated sales tax tools gain not only efficiency, but also peace of mind. (After all, nobody ever got an audit notice for having too accurate and timely a tax process – as far as we know.)

Does Shopify’s Planned Deprecation of AvaTax Affect Me?

Shopify announced that it will sunset the legacy Avalara AvaTax integration on April 30, 2025. After that date, the old AvaTax app will no longer function or receive support, meaning Shopify stores can’t rely on it for automated tax calculations. 

What does this mean for merchants? If you’ve been using Avalara via Shopify, you must take action before the deadline or risk your store not calculating taxes properly on May 1. 

Shopify Plus users who relied on AvaTax will need to switch well before April 30, 2025. If no action is taken, you could face serious issues: orders might default to Shopify’s basic tax calculations (which may not be configured for all your needs), or worse, some taxes might not be collected at all, leading to compliance gaps. Read the full article on Clearco’s blog.

How Kintsugi Simplifies Sales Tax Compliance

Sales tax automation has become particularly important for ecommerce brands. However, small to medium-sized ecommerce businesses have largely been left out, with providers focused on large brands with international presence. 

Recognizing this challenge – and the importance of accurate sales tax compliance for all ecommerce brands – Kintsugi’s AI-enabled platform was built to process huge amounts of transaction data in seconds and tell you exactly what you owe. And in one more click, Kintsugi can register and file for you too.