Second Front (2F) accelerates secure deployment of commercial software in regulated environments—cutting timelines from years to weeks for government, defense, and critical infrastructure missions.
With over 100 customers and a rapidly growing customer base, Second Front recognized the importance of establishing sales tax compliance to support continued expansion. As the company scaled to a distributed workforce of 130 employees across multiple states, ensuring compliance became a critical operational priority.
Outgrowing a legacy platform without SaaS expertise
As 2F scaled its technology and customer base, the finance team found their existing sales tax solution increasingly inadequate. The company operates on annual invoicing cycles, manages multi-state physical nexus from a fully distributed 130-person workforce, and navigates the specialized requirements of government contracting.
According to Brad Roberts, a senior controller at 2F, the limitations of their legacy platform became impossible to ignore. The solution didn't provide visibility into where 2F had tax exposure, and it wasn't integrated with their HR system to track physical nexus for remote employees. For a lean finance team, staying on top of compliance manually wasn't sustainable.
“Our existing vendor wasn’t giving us clear visibility into our exposure,” says Brad. “And they weren't even plugged into our HR platform to track physical nexus.”
After evaluating three new platforms, the decision became clear. Anrok offered the SaaS-specific capabilities and modern infrastructure 2F needed to scale confidently.
“The biggest reasons we were looking for a different vendor boiled down to customer support and specialization with SaaS companies,” Brad explains. “We have annual invoices and the complexities around that can be different than a non-SaaS company.”
Purpose-built for SaaS with seamless integrations
2F chose Anrok for its deep SaaS expertise and seamless integration with their modern tech stack. The implementation connected Anrok with Rillet, their AI-native ERP, and Justworks, their HRIS platform. This created an automated workflow that tracks both economic and physical nexus without manual intervention.
The implementation itself was remarkably straightforward. The core setup was completed in just a couple of weeks without requiring engineering resources. The plug-and-play integration meant 2F could get compliant quickly without diverting technical resources from their core defense technology work.
“The connectivity to our HR platform works really well with Rillet,” Brad notes. “Everything updates on new invoices very quickly, and the integration with our tech stack is very good.”
Confidence in compliance as the business scales
With Anrok in place, 2F transformed sales tax from a compliance burden into an automated process that scales with their growth. The platform provides real-time monitoring of both economic nexus through their Rillet integration and physical nexus through their Justworks integration across all states. Automated notifications alert the team when they're approaching nexus thresholds, enabling strategic compliance decisions rather than reactive scrambling.
“The best ROI you can have is just being compliant and not getting in any kind of trouble. Anrok lets us know when we're about to hit a threshold or when we may have a liability in a state, and then we can look and confirm,” shares Brad. “Sales tax is extremely complicated, and we don't want to have to deal with it in-house."
The time savings have been significant. Manual nexus monitoring and exposure tracking have been eliminated entirely, freeing the finance team to focus on strategic priorities. The modern, scalable infrastructure grows alongside 2F's expansion into new markets and jurisdictions, including their planned international growth.
Looking ahead, Brad sees Anrok as a long-term partner that can scale with 2F: “As we expand into new countries, it's reassuring to know Anrok is always scaling their international capabilities alongside us. It's a similar growth pattern that makes them the right long-term partner.”
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