What You'll Do
The Senior Backfiling Analyst plays a critical role in strengthening the accuracy, scalability, and AI-enabled execution of Avalara's U.S. Backfiling operations across multiple jurisdictions. As client complexity, historical exposure, and filing volumes increase, you will ensure consistent SLA performance, reduces compliance and penalty risk, and embeds AI-driven workflow improvements that enhance productivity and quality.
You will report to
Sr. Manager, Professional Services.
How This Role Elevates Avalara
For Customers
- You will deliver high-accuracy, historical return filings across multiple jurisdictions, mitigating exposure to penalties, interest, and audit risk.
- You will provide clear status communication and documentation for historical periods, helping customers understand risk remediation and outcome of backfiling engagements.
For the Business
- You will Improve operational leverage by:
- Reduce manual effort in data preparation, reconciliation, and notice handling.
- Standardize backfiling status and exposure reporting.
- Accelerate turnaround for large historical scopes and complex corrections.
- You will Support margin and discount discipline by minimizing re-work, return revisions, and avoidable escalations.
For the Team
- You will raise talent density through:
- Mentor junior analysts on backfiling standards, risk judgment, and client communication.
- Structured review and quality control discipline for historical returns.
- Sharing templates, SOPs, and AI-enabled best practices that uplift the whole team.
For Our AI-First Strategy
- You will embed AI tools into core backfiling workflows (data cleansing, mapping, variance analysis, exposure quantification, documentation).
- You will create measurable improvements in:
- Turnaround time per historical period.
- Accuracy and consistency across return and periods.
- Analyst productivity and independence.
What Your Responsibilities Will Be
Own end-to-end preparation, filing, and quality assurance of multi-period, multi-jurisdiction backfiling engagements, delivering ≥99% accuracy and 98–100% on-time SLA adherence for committed timelines.
- Independently manage complex reconciliations and variance analysis between client's data, prior filings, and proposed backfiled returns, leveraging strong analytical expertise to reconcile, and where required, alter or add transaction data while maintaining clear audit trails.
- Maintain a 24-hour turnaround time for critical client escalations and compliance inquiries related to historical filings, notices, or exposure questions.
- Demonstrate strong understanding of complex, historical transaction-level data and ensure data is accurately prepared, validated, and transformed before historical returns are prepared and filed.
- Improve document and data retrieval turnaround time by 15–25% (e.g., historical invoices, exemption certificates, prior returns, rate data) using AI-supported research, pattern recognition, and tracking tools.
- Standardize weekly backfiling status, risk, and exposure reporting using AI-enabled formatting and summarization tools for customers, internal leaders, and adjacent teams.
- Maintain and improve SOP documentation for backfiling (data intake, reconciliation, filing, notice handling, and closeout), aligned to client contracts, jurisdictional rules, and Avalara standards.
- Provide proactive support to CAMs and Sales teams to help drive successful backfiling and remediation sales cycles, including answering scoping questions, joining key client calls when needed, and providing clear, data-backed delivery perspectives to build customer confidence.
AI Bar Raiser Expectations
This Includes
- Embedding AI tools into:
- Data cleansing, enrichment, and transformation.
- Reconciliation and variance explanation.
- Historical exposure summaries and client-ready narratives.
- Backfiling escalation workflows.
- Quantifying AI impact (e.g., time saved per engagement, reduction in manual review hours, improved turnaround time per historical period, fewer rework cycles).
- Applying AI responsibly while exercising, especially for compliance-sensitive topics such as taxability, exposure estimates, and final return values.
- Sharing AI best practices (prompts, workflows, validation steps) to elevate team capability and embed them into SOPs.
12-Month Success Signals
Within 12 Months, The Senior Backfiling Analyst Will Demonstrate
- Sustained ≥99% filing accuracy across their backfiling portfolio (returns, amendments, and corrections).
- 98–100% performance for agreed backfiling SLAs, including during peak workload and complex multi-state returns.
- 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 validation controls, better upstream scoping, and AI-supported checks.
- At least one implemented AI-driven workflow enhancement (e.g., automated variance narratives, template builders, data-mapping accelerators) delivering quantifiable productivity gains.
- Documented AI and process best practices adopted across the backfiling team and incorporated into SOPs.
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 experience.
- Demonstrated experience managing multi-jurisdiction return portfolios and handling compliance escalations (e.g., notices, penalty issues).
- Advanced MS Excel proficiency (complex formulas, pivots, large data-set handling) and demonstrated ability to work with complex historical transaction data to support accurate backfiling.
- Experience using AI tools to improve operational speed, quality, or scale (for example, in data analysis, documentation, or reporting workflows).
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.
