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Case 06Telecoms · Finance

VAT reporting

The data behind a key pillar of tax compliance, fixed at the source

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The old way

A broken report, fixed by hand

Purchase VAT reporting is a key pillar of tax compliance. But the finance system report behind it came out wrong every time it was downloaded.

Two analysts fixed and reformatted it by hand, then reconciled the VAT figures to the general ledger.

  1. DownloadFinance system report
  2. FixTwo analystsBy hand
  3. ReformatTwo analystsBy hand
  4. ReconcileTo the general ledgerBy hand

The cost

It was slow, so it only ran weekly

Every missed run was a chance for an error to get through, meaning tax overpaid or underpaid and the risk of an audit by the tax authority, with interest and penalties.

  1. DownloadFinance system reportProblem: Duplicates, misaligned rows, mixed old and new tax codes
  2. FixTwo analystsBy hand
  3. ReformatTwo analystsBy hand
  4. ReconcileTo the general ledgerProblem: Judgement that lived only in the analysts' headsBy hand

Before

3 hrs

Manual work per run

What we changed

The judgement, written down as rules

We wrote the analysts' judgement down as ordered tax rules and automated the whole pipeline to run every working day, with an audit trail.

Each transaction is labelled include, exclude or human review, along with the rule that decided it.

  1. ExtractPulled from the finance system daily
  2. CleanFixes rows, removes duplicates
  3. DecideTax rules label each lineIncludeExcludeHuman review
  4. ReconcileMatched to the general ledger
  5. DeliverAudit-ready file to the tax team

Nothing is released until the VAT totals reconcile to the general ledger.

The result

Manual fixing per run is now zero

That was the time spent fixing, reformatting and reconciling the report by hand. The tax data is now checked every working day.

Manual work per run

From 3 hrs to 0 hrs

  • Weekly to DailyTax data checked five times as oftenDaily means every working day.
  • 100%Transactions traced to the rule that decided them

How it was measured

Manual work per run was the time spent fixing, reformatting and reconciling the report by hand. It's now zero. The 100% is by design, because every transaction carries the rule that decided it.

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