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Sales Tax | Audit Evidence

Every filed return ships with its evidence.

Source invoices, the exemption certificates as they stood on the sale dates, the taxability decision recorded on each line, the use tax accrual workings, the reviewer sign-off and the filing confirmation, packaged per state per period. An audit opened three years out is answered from one pack rather than from a three-week reconstruction.

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Sales tax audit evidence pack

What the system does

Capability, input, output.

  • Pack per state per period

    Input
    A filed return
    Output
    Its evidence assembled and sealed at filing, not gathered on request

  • Point-in-time certificates

    Input
    Exempt sales in the period
    Output
    The certificate valid on each sale date, which is the version an auditor asks for

  • Line-level decisions

    Input
    Taxability and sourcing applied at invoice
    Output
    The position and its reason, per line, as it was at the time

  • Use tax workings

    Input
    Accruals for the period
    Output
    The bills, the screen result and the accrual, tied to the return figure

  • Sign-off record

    Input
    Reviewer approval before filing
    Output
    Who approved what, and when, held with the period

  • Sample pulls

    Input
    An auditor's transaction sample
    Output
    Each sampled sale answered with its invoice, certificate and decision in one view

  • Immutable trail

    Input
    Any later change
    Output
    Recorded as a change against the sealed position rather than overwriting it

Audit FAQ

What buyers ask.

What does a state actually ask for?

Typically a sample of transactions, and then for each one the invoice, the reason no tax was charged, and the certificate supporting it as of that date. The exempt sales are where assessments come from, because a certificate that cannot be produced turns an exempt sale into taxable sale with the tax owed by you.

Why seal the pack at filing rather than build it on request?

Because building on request means reconstructing a position from records that have moved since. Customers get archived, certificates get renewed, item categories get recoded. The pack sealed at filing is what you actually filed, and the difference between those two things is what an auditor is looking for.

We are already under audit. Does this help now?

Partly, and we would rather say so than oversell it. Everything transacted in the system from now is evidenced as it happens. For historical periods, the pack is only as complete as the records you can load, and gaps in certificates from three years ago do not close retroactively. It helps most with the next audit.

Can our advisor work in it directly?

Yes, with access scoped to the periods and states they are engaged on. Handing over a shared drive tends to mean handing over everything, which is a different risk, so external access is deliberately narrower than internal.

What if something was genuinely wrong?

You find it before the auditor does, which is the whole argument. Uncovered exempt sales, missing accruals and lines with no recorded decision are visible as counts while the period is still open. A known exposure is a decision to make; an unknown one is an assessment waiting.

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Related features

See what your last filed period would produce.

Connect your books, free. Invoices, certificates, decisions and sign-off assemble into the pack a state auditor would ask for.

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