&Collar is a men's dresswear company pioneering "workleisure” – sustainable, comfortable clothing that performs like athleisure but works in professional settings. Selling stain-resistant, wrinkle-free dress shirts made from recycled materials through Amazon and multiple Shopify stores, they've scaled to $14M in annual revenue. But rapid growth brought a compliance nightmare that came to a head during their biggest sales period. After trying multiple sales tax solutions, they found their answer with Kintsugi, cutting costs by 50% and finally achieving true peace of mind from a solution that delivers accuracy and accountability.

Fast Growth Triggers Tax Problems

&Collar has seen spectacular success since launch, and soon, they were growing so rapidly, it became hard to keep up. As founder Ben Perkins explained, "We grew too fast and I had to learn about nexus the hard way."

At first, Ben managed sales tax manually. As the company expanded into more states, he moved to Avalara, then to Numeral, searching for the right solution. "It's kind of a good, better, best solution – or I guess worst, when I was managing it myself,” said Ben. “Then it got good, and then better. And we now think with Kintsugi, we've found the best."

But the path to finding the best solution came with major challenges along the way.

The Challenge Before Kintsugi

With their previous provider, Numeral, a seemingly small oversight became detrimental. Banking information for Idaho was erroneously entered in the system. As a result, &Collar was found non-compliant in Idaho due to this data entry error. 

"All of our Shopify payouts were held toward the end of November," Ben said. “25% of sales in a six-week period. That was the worst possible time.” Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and the peak holiday shopping season all passed with no Shopify payouts. 

The financial impact was immense. "Shopify was holding hundreds of thousands of dollars because of this issue, Ben explained. How can you kill a brand quicker than suffocating cash because of non-compliance from an oversight?"

The Search for Better

When evaluating sales tax platforms, &Collar's top priorities were: 

1. Peace of mind that sales tax is handled correctly to keep them compliant across all jurisdictions

2. People and being treated like they matter

3. Price, but not at the expense of quality

"Price is always an element when evaluating our tech stack, and the fact that we saved significantly while still being a valued customer at Kintsugi says a lot." Ben's head of finance had a memorable way of framing the savings: "Each saving equates to a holiday or Christmas party for the team. And so we paid for about three Christmas parties by migrating over to Kintsugi."

Accuracy and accountability from the sales tax provider are critically important. With any technology, a human mistake or a bug will inevitably arise at some point. What matters is how the technology provider handles it, and how fast they resolve it for you. 

"With Kintsugi, we stopped getting non-compliant emails from different states and districts. We save money and can really be hands-off—what a win. We matter enough to be able to know the team and feel confident that they'll take care of us. Secondly, there are real cost savings that end up contributing to our bottom line."

Peace of Mind at Scale

For &Collar, transaction data is spread across multiple platforms, increasing the risk of transactions slipping through the cracks. It’s a common problem that’s difficult to solve manually, and nearly impossible to scale. 

With Kintsugi, tracking transactions across platforms is no longer a worry. "We've been able to integrate Kintsugi with our four Shopify storefronts and Amazon—really all of our primary sales channels—with almost zero lift, at least on our end," Ben said. "The Kintsugi team was able to onboard us quickly and effectively across all those sales channels and saved our finance and ops teams really any headache."

The difference between manually managing sales tax and using a provider is "night or day different," Ben noted. But the gap between using the wrong provider and the right one can mean the difference between cash flowing freely and hundreds of thousands of dollars getting frozen during your most critical sales period.

Built for What's Next

When asked if there's anything he wishes Kintsugi could do that it doesn't yet, Ben's answer revealed the level of trust they've built: "I don't think there's anything we can think of right now in terms of a wish list for Kintsugi.  But the crazy thing is I believe that it would actually get built if we asked for it. That's how awesome Kintsugi's been."

For a brand built on solving problems—making dress shirts that perform like athletic wear—finding a sales tax partner that actually solves problems rather than creating them has been a true relief.

From learning about nexus "the hard way" to achieving true hands-off compliance while saving big on costs, &Collar's journey reflects what's possible when the right technology meets the right partner approach. No more cash flow crises during Black Friday. No more getting lost in the crowd. Just compliance that works, costs that make sense, and the confidence to focus on growth.