VAT check on quarterly filings

Situation

Bookkeeping firm with roughly fifty entrepreneurs as clients, from sole traders to SMEs with some foreign trade. Every quarterly filing was reviewed by hand by a senior: VAT codes on purchase invoices, ICP lines, and the reconciliation of the filing to the general ledger accounts. For some clients the same kind of errors returned every quarter, because the person doing the entries was not always the same.

What was built

• A check step that runs through all purchase entries per client per filing period and flags suspect VAT codes and foreign counterparties.
• Explanation per flag: why there is suspicion (deviating from historic pattern, counterparty without VAT number, non-EU country with a domestic rate).
• Work list per employee inside the existing workflow package. Each flag has one of three outcomes: adjust, add explanation, or mark as correct.
• Human approval stays: no correction is posted without a person in the loop.

What it delivered

After handover: time per client per quarter for the check dropped from an average of twenty minutes to eight. Across the client base that translates into a half day per employee per week freed up. Corrections after submission on VAT codes dropped visibly in the next quarter.

What was not changed

The accounting package stayed unchanged. The workflow stayed unchanged. We added one check step inside the existing way of working. No new screen to learn, no double entry.