An accounts payable invoice with no sales tax is a question to investigate. It could involve a nontaxable item, an exemption, a seller that did not collect, or facts that are still missing. Use tax software should help your team distinguish those cases before an amount becomes an accrual or a proposed recovery.
Evaluate the workflow using a small, authorized invoice sample. Include invoices with tax charged, no tax charged, a supported exemption, a credit, a duplicate, and an unclear ship-to or use location. Define the expected review result for each case with the person responsible for your tax decisions.
Start with the purchase facts
Give the evaluator line descriptions, invoice and transaction dates, vendor identifiers, amounts, tax charged, destination or use facts, and available exemption evidence. Include the relevant entity and accounting period. A vendor name or general ledger account can help organize the work, but it may not settle what a particular purchase is or how it was used.
Ask the software to show missing facts before calculation. If location, transaction date, item classification, or exemption support is unresolved, the reviewer should see that uncertainty. A blank field should not quietly become zero tax or a universal exemption.
Texas provides a useful example: a purchaser can owe use tax on taxable items stored, used, or consumed in Texas when the seller did not collect the applicable Texas tax, unless an exemption applies. Other jurisdictions and facts require their own analysis. Texas Comptroller use tax guidance.
Compare expected tax with vendor-charged tax
Ask the vendor to display the invoice amount, tax charged, calculation inputs, expected treatment, and any difference together. The reviewer should be able to inspect the source invoice and the basis used for the comparison.
Use labeled arithmetic to check the interface. Suppose a test invoice shows $80 tax charged and your independently reviewed expected result is $60. The $20 difference is a potential overpayment for investigation. It is not automatically an approved refund or cash recovered. In a second example, $0 charged against a reviewed $60 result creates a potential accrual for review; the software must still account for applicable exemptions, credits, and facts.
Keep the source amount and the reviewer’s determination separate. Corrections should retain the original invoice evidence and an explanation of the decision.
Test three exception queues
**Missing or incomplete facts:** Assign an owner to obtain a better description, destination, exemption document, or other required evidence. Ask how unresolved items appear at close.
**Potential underpayment:** Inspect the calculation basis and evidence before approving any use tax accrual. Verify that the same invoice will not create another accrual when it is imported again.
**Potential overpayment:** Preserve invoice, payment, treatment, and contact history needed for the appropriate review path. Ask who is responsible for pursuing a vendor correction or a jurisdiction-specific refund process. Finding a difference and obtaining money are different outcomes. Review the reverse audit workflow and claim-support boundaries when this is part of your evaluation.
Require a usable review export
During the demo, open a sample export with invoice identifiers, source amounts, tax charged, proposed differences, reviewer decisions, and supporting references. Reconcile its totals to the screen and the input control sheet. Ask what happens when a credit arrives later or an invoice moves to another period.
Use these observations to estimate ongoing work: unresolved invoices per period, research steps per exception, and time to prepare an approved close package. Do not assume automation eliminates the need for accountable tax review.
Select a purchasing workflow, then compare scope
Start with Prophit.ai’s use tax software overview if vendor-charged tax and purchasing exposure are the main needs. Review the connected sales and use tax platform when your team also manages sales, certificates, and returns. Confirm the exact data sources, review controls, and output coverage during evaluation.
Ask each vendor to work through the same invoice sample and return its exceptions and review export. Compare quoted integration, implementation, and subscription charges in the sales tax software cost calculator. Budget your team’s internal review effort separately before comparing the proposals.
*Originally published 2026-09-01. Substantially rewritten and editorially reviewed September 8, 2026. The evaluation checklist is our recommendation; jurisdiction examples link to the responsible tax authority.*