Indirect tax resources for the new era of tax compliance

For high-volume businesses, tax needs to be calculated at the moment of each transaction, not corrected in batches afterward. That means applying current rates and product taxability rules across thousands of jurisdictions as sales happen, while maintaining the throughput needed to process large transaction volumes across channels.

The underlying platform also needs to keep pace when demand rises. Self-healing and autoscaling capabilities help sustain performance during volume spikes, so transaction processing can expand as needed without forcing tax teams to add manual work or delay downstream compliance steps.

On the compliance side, that already-calculated transaction data then needs to move through validation, return mapping, and filing with minimal manual work, so a jump in transaction volume doesn't mean a matching jump in tax team headcount.

Multi-state compliance means keeping track of different rates, filing frequencies, forms, and thresholds for every state where a business has nexus. The most dependable approach prepares signature-ready returns across thousands of U.S. jurisdictions through one workflow, so a California return and a Texas return move through the same process instead of separate manual steps.

For businesses that also carry VAT or GST obligations outside the U.S., that same approach needs to extend globally, reconciling data across ERP, e-invoicing, and tax-authority systems.

Excise tax adds a layer of complexity that general sales tax doesn't have: it's usually tied to specific product categories — fuel, alcohol, tobacco, and similar goods — and calculated by volume, weight, or unit rather than as a percentage of sale price, with rates that can change by jurisdiction and by product type at the same time. Managing it well means tracking which products carry an excise obligation, applying the correct per-unit rate at the point of sale or production, and keeping that calculation separate from, but reconciled with, standard sales and use tax reporting.

Because excise tax filings often follow their own forms, schedules, and due dates, businesses that handle high volumes of excisable goods typically run into a few recurring risks:

• Rate changes that apply mid-period, rather than at the start of a filing cycle
• Product classifications that shift what rate or exemption applies
• Filings that require different data than a standard sales tax return, pulled from separate systems

Getting ahead of those risks means calculating excise tax at the transaction or production level using current rates and rules, rather than reconstructing it at filing time.

E-invoicing, or electronic invoicing, is the digital exchange of invoice documents between suppliers and buyers in a structured, machine-readable format. Unlike PDF invoices or scanned documents, true e-invoicing involves the direct transmission of structured invoice data between financial systems — eliminating manual processing entirely.

E-invoicing represents a significant advancement in financial operations, allowing businesses to automate the entire invoice lifecycle from creation to payment reconciliation. The structured data format enables seamless integration with accounting systems, ERP platforms, and other financial software.

European e-invoicing rules vary by country today, and the EU's VAT in the Digital Age (ViDA) package is pushing toward mandatory digital reporting across the EU by 2030. Businesses can meet those requirements by connecting to each country's e-invoicing formats and networks, including Peppol, but building and maintaining separate integrations for every country can be complex. Using a single connection through a platform like ONESOURCE Pagero can make that process easier to scale across markets.

Once invoices are moving through that connection, matching e-invoice data against indirect tax returns can help catch timing, foreign exchange, or tax-point mismatches before they become filing discrepancies.

Yes, well-built e-invoicing software handles both business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-government (B2G) invoice submission, connecting to accredited networks — including Peppol, which many governments require for B2G exchange — as well as country-specific government portals used for direct B2G reporting.

Because B2B and B2G formats often carry different validation rules and data fields, managing both through one platform like ONESOURCE Pagero means a business doesn't need a separate vendor relationship or a separate compliance process for each invoice type.

Yes, indirect tax software connects to major ERP, e-commerce, and billing platforms so that tax calculates the same way regardless of where a sale originates. A connection to downstream compliance software pulls transaction data directly from those systems to prepare returns, without a tax team exporting and reformatting files by hand. For businesses running SAP or Oracle specifically, certified and endorsed connections are typically available for those platforms.

On their own, ERPs like SAP and Oracle record transactions but don't typically apply detailed, jurisdiction-specific tax rules the way a dedicated determination engine does. What they provide is the transaction data — customer, product, location, amount — that a tool like ONESOURCE Indirect Tax Determination needs to calculate the correct sales tax, use tax, VAT, or GST in real time. With certified connections linking the ERP to determination, a business gets correct tax calculated at the point of sale without rebuilding that logic inside the ERP itself.

Determining sales tax at scale means calculating the correct tax on every transaction, in every jurisdiction, the moment a sale happens, regardless of channel or volume. That requires applying current rates and product taxability rules across thousands of U.S. and global jurisdictions, connected directly to the ERP, e-commerce, and billing systems generating those transactions.

Because the underlying tax content needs to be maintained by tax law specialists and updated on an ongoing basis, a business shouldn't need to manually track rate or rule changes as its transaction volume or geographic footprint grows.

Use tax applies when sales tax wasn't collected on a taxable purchase, which means accuracy depends on correctly identifying which purchases qualify and calculating the liability, before it's ever added to a return. That calculation should identify use-tax-relevant purchases alongside sales tax, then carry that data straight into return preparation and filing, so use tax accrual isn't a separate manual process handled apart from everything else a team is filing. That connection matters because use tax is easy to miss when it's tracked in a spreadsheet outside the rest of compliance.

Reconciliation discrepancies typically surface where two systems disagree on the same transaction — an e-invoice total that doesn't match a filed return, or a timing gap between when tax was calculated and when it was reported. Catching them means importing data from every relevant source and flagging discrepancy types such as:

• Timing mismatches between e-invoicing and return data
• Foreign exchange differences across entities
• Tax-point mismatches between when tax was calculated and when it was reported

Because those categories and reports can be built around what a business needs to track, tax teams can set up an automated reconciliation process around the discrepancies that matter most to them, rather than resolving inconsistencies manually line by line.

Launching in 2026, ONESOURCE Indirect Tax Determination powered by CoCounsel will introduce real-time anomaly detection, automatically flagging tax calculation discrepancies as they occur. This enables businesses to quickly identify and evaluate unexpected changes in transaction patterns, determine whether they are valid, and address issues before they impact downstream processes. By detecting anomalies at the point of transaction, organizations can avoid costly corrective actions later and reduce the risk of errors going unnoticed.

Exemption certificate management has traditionally been reactive — certificates get chased down once an audit notice arrives, not before. AI-based tools change that by reviewing existing certificates against jurisdiction-specific rules, flagging missing or invalid documentation, and validating government-issued ID numbers automatically, catching problems long before an auditor does. That validation works best when it connects directly to tax determination, so a certificate is confirmed and applied at the point of sale rather than reconciled after the transaction has already closed.

Manufacturers deal with certificates from both directions: customer-facing certificates that justify tax-free sales, and vendor-facing certificates that support tax-free purchases of raw materials or components for resale.

Managing both well means having one place to collect, validate, and store certificates from customers while also tracking the certificates issued to vendors — ideally with an online portal like ONESOURCE Certificate Manager where customers can upload their own documentation directly, rather than a tax team chasing down paperwork by email. That central record is also what a tax team pulls from during an audit, since certificate images and data can be exported on request instead of searched for across departments.

A certificate management solution is only as useful as its weakest link, so it's worth checking a few things before choosing one:

• Validation, not just storage — does it check certificates against jurisdiction-specific rules and government-issued ID numbers, or just file them away?
• A connection to tax determination — does an approved certificate apply automatically at the point of sale, or does someone reconcile it separately afterward?
• Self-service collection — can customers or vendors upload their own certificates, or does your team request each one manually?
• Audit-ready reporting — can certificate images and data be pulled quickly when an auditor asks for them?

A solution that covers all four connects certificate validation directly to the transaction workflow, rather than treating it as a separate compliance task.

Yes, particularly in the parts of compliance that involve moving and checking data rather than making judgment calls. AI can handle data import, validation, and return mapping across thousands of jurisdictions, and early adopters of this kind of technology have seen routine reporting time drop by up to 65% as a result.

For businesses with international VAT or GST obligations, that same approach applies globally, reconciling data across ERP and e-invoicing systems before returns are prepared. In both cases, AI is doing the data work; a tax professional still reviews and signs off before anything is filed.

No. The AI tools built for regulated tax work are designed to execute against content that has already been researched and verified by tax specialists, and to keep a documented, auditable trail for every determination. Tax professionals still review and sign off on filings; AI just reduces the manual data work so that review, not data entry, is where staff time goes.

It depends on what the AI is built on. AI that infers an answer from general patterns can produce a result that sounds right but has no verified basis behind it — a real problem in a field with thousands of jurisdictions and constantly changing rules.

AI built for regulated tax work should meet a higher bar, what Thomson Reuters calls Fiduciary-Grade AI™: it executes against content that's already been researched and verified by tax law specialists, and it keeps a documented, auditable trail for every determination, with a tax professional reviewing and signing off before a return is filed. That combination — verified content plus human review — is what makes AI something a tax team can build a compliance process around.