Auditors treat every sale as taxable by default when the exemption certificate is missing, invalid, expired — or issued for the wrong state. CertVault collects, validates, and tracks your certificates per state — and logs every action immutably, so the paper trail that proves you did it right is ready before the auditor ever asks.
A Texas resale certificate doesn't cover a California shipment — but the native Shopify flag exempts the customer everywhere. The gap is invisible until the audit, and then it's expensive.
Without a valid certificate for the ship-to state, the auditor reclassifies the sale — and you owe the tax you never collected.
States stack negligence penalties and interest on top of the back tax. The certificate you "meant to get" costs more than the sale was worth.
The most common gap: a valid certificate that doesn't cover the state you shipped to. Per-state scoping is the entire game.
From buyer upload to audit export — nothing lives in a shared inbox or a filing cabinet anymore.
Every buyer × every state they expect exemption in: covered, expiring, or missing. Missing means orders there collect tax today — the inventory auditors ask about first.
Certificates are format-checked on upload and approval is hard-blocked for invalid ones. An invalid cert can never become an "approved" cert by accident.
A public link your B2B buyers use to submit their own certificates in about a minute — no login, no back-and-forth email. Annual-renewal states get automatic expiry suggestions.
State-aware renewal emails generated in one click, every request recorded, and requests auto-marked fulfilled when the buyer resubmits. A paper trail of follow-up the auditor respects.
Pick a certificate + ship-to state and see whether the exemption actually holds. Simulate per-order: exempt, or collect tax — the decision a checkout integration would call.
Every submit, approve, reject, login, and renewal is logged immutably and exports to CSV in one click — the exemption paper trail, ready for the auditor's first request.
Most merchants are fully inventoried within a week — buyers do the uploading, you do the reviewing.
Email your B2B buyers the self-serve upload link. They submit certificates themselves — state, type, tax ID, document — in about a minute each.
Submissions land in your pending queue with validation results attached. Approve the good ones; invalid ones can't be approved at all.
The coverage matrix shows every buyer × state: covered, expiring, missing. Renewals are requested in one click and auto-fulfilled on resubmit.
We're not the cheapest widget and we're not an enterprise suite. Here's where each option fits, so you can pick the right one even if it isn't us.
| CertVault | Enterprise suites Avalara CertCapture, Sovos | Thin Shopify apps $5–10/mo widgets | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Per-state scoping (TX cert ≠ CA shipment) | Yes — the whole point | Yes | No — blanket exempt flag only |
| Buyer self-serve upload portal | Yes, with request codes | Partial — buyers report manual per-state uploads | No certificate storage at all |
| Invalid certificates blocked at approval | Yes, hard block | Yes | No validation layer |
| Blanket vs single-purchase tracking | Yes | Varies by module | No |
| Nexus-state exposure report | Yes | Yes | No |
| Published pricing, self-serve signup | $19–99/mo | Custom quotes, sales calls | $5–10/mo |
| Built for a one-person ops team | Yes | Implementation projects | Yes |
If you're a mid-market company already on NetSuite with a tax team, the enterprise suites are the right call. If you just need an EU VAT toggle, the thin apps are fine. CertVault is for the Shopify merchant in between: real B2B exemption exposure, no sales call, no implementation project.
Every plan includes unlimited buyer-portal uploads, the coverage matrix, and audit exports. Cancel anytime.
14-day free trial on every plan · no credit card required · cancel anytime in one click
No-surprise-renewal pledge: the price you see is the price you pay — we email you 7 days before any renewal, and plan changes never take effect without your confirmation.
Straight answers before you start the trial.
Tell us where to send your workspace login. A human (yes, a real one) sets it up within one business day.
No credit card. No sales call unless you ask for one.
We'll email your login — if we're ever not a fit, reply "cancel" and you're out. That's the whole cancel path.
Start your 14-day free trial. Send the portal link to your buyers today; review your first coverage matrix tonight.