Fishwife is a woman-founded CPG company focused on making "ethically sourced, premium, and delicious tinned seafood a staple in every cupboard."
The company was started in 2020 and sells tinned fish online through its own website and through numerous online platforms, including Amazon and Misfits Market. It also sells its products through brick-and-mortar retailers like Whole Foods and Target.
Headquartered in Los Angeles, Fishwife began as an e-commerce brand selling direct to consumers. But as demand grew and the company expanded into wholesale, its founder and CEO, Becca Millstein, knew the company needed a way to confidently manage sales tax compliance.
Numeral was that solution.
Sales tax compliance was on shaky ground
Like many companies, Fishwife wasn't focused on developing scalable sales tax compliance protocols from the start. In fact, its piecemeal sales tax solution left many open questions about whether the company was fully compliant, creating potential risks.
"At the beginning of Fishwife, I had a bookkeeper, and I had a friend who was advising me on all things finance," said Millstein. "Between the three of us, we sort of pieced it together. And I would say at a high level, I hope we were compliant. I think we were compliant."
Millstein explained that the company managed tax on a state-by-state basis, but it "felt very fragmented," and she was never completely sure that everything was being done correctly. She felt like the business was "standing on uneven ground."
"It's just such a new and foreign world to a first-time business owner," she said. "We were doing the best we could, but there was always a question of ‘Are we really being compliant? Are we doing everything the way that we should be doing it?’"
Millstein not only faced uncertainty about whether the company was audit-ready, but also felt like taking care of sales tax on her own was taking time away from more important tasks.
"In the early days, it was just me. So while I'm good at, you know, one or two things, I had to do everything that's required when you’re building an early-stage consumer brand. So operations, finance, it was hard."
Expansion into wholesale made a new sales tax solution necessary
As Fishwife grew, sticking with the status quo became unsustainable, especially as the company expanded and formed partnerships with major retailers.
"Expanding into wholesale transforms the business completely," Millstein said. "Wholesale is just immeasurably more complex."
Millstein explained that Fishwife went from dealing with human customers who purchase at most around $500 worth of canned fish each year to huge retailers purchasing tens of millions of cans. "You need to execute with each customer flawlessly to ensure that the relationship stays really positive and moving in the right direction."
This meant that developing a real, sustainable approach to sales tax compliance became a pressing priority. "When we started operating as a wholesale business nationwide, we knew we needed a more full-service solution to managing sales tax," said Millstein.
A partner’s recommendation for Numeral makes all the difference
Millstein found Numeral through a recommendation from a company that she brought into Fishwife to offer financial management support as the company scaled.
"They were the first to recommend Numeral as a tool that we could use to streamline all tax compliance matters," Millstein said.
Fishwife needed a solution that could handle its unique sales tax complexities. Specifically, the company now had wholesale customers nationwide, but it also sold direct to consumers nationwide. And it had multiple sales platforms, from its own website to Amazon to smaller online retailers.
This meant it needed a sales tax solution that could:
- Track sales to consumers across the United States to determine the company’s progress toward establishing nexus in the states where it has customers. Establishing nexus in a state triggers sales tax registration and collection requirements there.
- Collect sales data from multiple channels to ensure accurate nexus tracking, including sales made through marketplace facilitators like Amazon, which collect and remit sales tax compliance for sellers for on-platform sales.
- Register the company in new states as it establishes economic nexus. Registration is necessary before a company can start collecting sales tax.
- Calculate the correct amount of sales tax due on each transaction, applying each state's unique rules for whether and how tinned seafood is taxed and applying the correct tax rates to each sale
- Manage exemption certificates from wholesale buyers in order to ensure that resellers are not charged sales tax and to ensure that the company is audit-ready and able to prove when a sale should be exempt
- File and remit sales tax payments as required in every state where Fishwife has established nexus and registered
Numeral took care of all of these tasks and more. Numeral is built for e-commerce companies, and it was able to handle the complexity of Fishwife's situation with ease.
Numeral delivered the real solutions Fishwife needed
Partnering with Numeral brought Millstein relief from day one.
"We started working with Numeral and immediately felt so much more confident that our tax compliance would be covered and that we were indeed compliant state by state, which, as any business owner knows, is very difficult and stressful to manage," Millstein said.
Millstein also appreciated some of the other unique features that Numeral offers, including:
An end-to-end solution
Numeral manages every aspect of sales tax compliance, from nexus tracking to registering, filing, and remitting sales tax. Numeral even sets up a virtual mailbox and responds to notices from the state. This means that Fishwife doesn't have to think about this issue. It's handled.
"Just knowing that they are covering our business end to end, whether it's direct to consumer or wholesale, gives me so much peace of mind," Millstein said.
Support for multi-channel sales
Like many e-commerce brands, Fishwife sells across multiple platforms. Millstein praised Numeral for being "plugged in across all of those channels and monitoring our sales tax by state."
Integrations with major e-commerce platforms, billing systems, and accounting software mean that Numeral handles multi-channel sales effortlessly, collecting all transaction data automatically with no manual importing required.
This eliminates tedious tasks and reduces the risk of human error.
A true human touch
While there are other sales tax systems out there, Millstein found that many of them were lacking a key feature Numeral offers: a human element.
"There's a human touch to Numeral that you don't get with most systems," she said. "The thing that I love so much about Numeral is that it's not just a tool or a piece of faceless software. There are real humans behind it that I can communicate with over email, and they're both incredibly buttoned-up and very responsive."
Millstein found comfort in the fact that Fishwife's sales tax compliance was "in totally trusted human hands," with U.S.-based tax experts reviewing every return before it was filed and providing personalized support, including answers to sales tax strategy questions.
"We know that we can reach out to them anytime we have a question, if we need to," Millstein said. "I just feel very cared for by the human presence behind the tool."
Exemption-certificate management
Resellers don't pay taxes when purchasing items wholesale to sell to customers. However, they must provide an exemption certificate, and the company selling them the items must keep that certificate on file.
Businesses like Fishwife sell to numerous resellers, so many exemption certificates must be collected and managed. This means keeping them on file, making sure they are valid, and taking action to update them if and when they expire.
Numeral makes this process effortless for Fishwife. "Numeral's exemption certificate management solution makes scaling our wholesale business so much easier," Millstein said.
Accuracy plus the Numeral guarantee
Finally, Millstein praises Numeral for its accuracy and for standing behind its work.
"I trust them to handle everything from end to end. I know that they've got it covered. I don't have to ask questions. And I don't need to double-check anyone's work. I also know they'll stand behind their work if anything comes up. That kind of trust is everything, as a founder."
The Numeral Guarantee is comprehensive. We'll cover filing costs, fees, and penalties if we miss a filing or make a mistake that results in penalties after an audit.
Numeral is the go-to solution for fast-growing ecommerce brands
While sales tax compliance used to be an issue only if you had a physical presence in a state, the Supreme Court case South Dakota v. Wayfair changed the rules, making e-commerce sellers potentially responsible for sales tax compliance wherever they have customers.
Now, sellers may be required to collect and remit sales tax when they establish economic nexus in a state by earning a certain amount or completing a set number of sales there (amounts and numbers vary by state). So they must understand and follow the tax rules in every state where they have customers. Choosing the right partner is the key to doing that.
"Sales tax is incredibly complicated, and knowing I have access to experts backed by a guarantee lets me relax and focus on what I'm actually good at in the business," Millstein said.
"Our number one core value at Fishwife is 'Build a delightful world,'" she explained. "What that means to me is that we, as a company, are building a delightful world for our team and letting them really inhabit their zone of genius and live their greatest strengths every day. For us, managing sales tax compliance is no one’s greatest strength."
It's Numeral's greatest strength, though.
"Numeral really has taken its place as the industry leader in sales tax compliance. Because of Numeral, we don't have to think about sales tax. As a founder, you're making a million decisions every single day. You need to trust that the things outside of your expertise are fully handled. With Numeral, I don't have to second-guess it. I trust them to take care of everything."
