Bectran Blog

Credit Management: Reduce Audit Exposure and Time to Manage Tax Exempt Certificates

Written by Dominic Biegel | Feb 21, 2017 10:31:00 AM

Organizing and managing tax exempt certificates and licenses can be a very tedious, manual process. Manual tasks involved include: Validating expiration of certificates, tracking and monitoring the inventory of tax exempt certificates for validity to minimize potentials for tax liability, periodic and on-demand reporting, etc. These tasks often significantly interfere with other credit management tasks.

In particular, from a security standpoint, the traditional tax exempt credit management method is inherently weak in tracking and accounting for liability risks. For example, the risk of losing or misplacing documents can result in countless employee hours lost along with fines and penalties to regularize the lost documentation. With Bectran’s Digital Tax Exempt Management (DTEM) solution, it is no longer necessary to keep endless cabinets filled with paper files. Instead, customer documents are securely stored and organized in a digital portfolio, accessible at electronic speed.

With the DTEM, credit departments can reduce their tax audit exposures by eliminating the costs associated with expired, rejected, and misplaced certificates. Audits are a daunting experience and any errors found have great financial impacts. With the DTEM, the tracking of expiring/expired certificates is automated. Customers are sent notifications through the DTEM platform to upload their new certificates prior to expiration.

No credit management department likes to deal with tax-related short pays or disputes. Often, they are a result of a tax exempt customer being charged tax without a proper tax exempt certificate on file. With the DTEM, your customer uploads all their tax exempt certificates directly through a custom online portal. They are also prompted to do so during the credit application process and prior to expiration.

The DTEM solution empowers credit management and tax personnel to proactively monitor tax certificates. The DTEM segments certificates by both state and customer account numbers and limits access to authorized personnel by responsibility. The DTEM also provides a number of dashboards and reports that help simplify the maintenance of tax exempts and provides your company with the visibility and tools to work faster and more efficiently.