Archive for July, 2008

Going Green with Use Tax Exemptions

Friday, July 18th, 2008

Businesses large and small are being challenged with going green within their operation. You might ask, well, what can the tax department or A/P do about going green? If you think about it, every business that deals with use tax on the buy side can take a step towards saving trees while reducing the need for shipping volumes of paper.

How?

Take a look at manufacturers, for example, who purchase materials, parts and other items from a wide variety of vendors. In most cases, they are exempt from paying use tax. To protect themselves when a supplier fails to ask for proof of exempt status, they usually provide a use tax certificate. In many situations though, it is easier for them to generate a large collected volume of all use tax forms and submit that to each vendor rather than spend the time and effort finding and sending out the right certificate for each vendor at transaction time. As you might imagine, significant amounts of paper are used in preparing these binders that are then shipped out to every vendor at great expense. This broad-brush approach can be quite costly from a conservation standpoint.

What then? Is it possible to control and automate the process of generating, approving, delivering and tracking the receipt of each use tax form on demand for the specific vendor at transaction time? Can it be done electronically to speed the delivery and conserve natural resources?

Certainly.

Now you can go green while reducing the risk of a use tax audit—with TEAMS Express Use Tax.

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Posted in Green Compliance, Sales and Use Tax Exemption Compliance, Use Tax Issues | No Comments »

Exemption Certificate Collection and Management for the Retail Industry

Tuesday, July 8th, 2008

Collecting sales tax exemption certificates and verifying exempt status can be a drudge for just about any department or business. This is certainly true for those businesses engaged in retail sales. Fewer staff, more products and increasing numbers of demanding customers can mean a nightmare at the point of sale. Verifying exempt status in-store must be a quick and painless endeavor with the highest levels of accuracy. Furthermore, if store personnel cannot verify that a certificate is on file, they must have the means to collect, update and/or renew a customer’s exemption certificate without slowing down the flow of retail traffic AND without annoying the customer.

It would be nice if the tax department was right there, in-store, but that department is too overworked. Online verification, online collection and submission are essential to the continued success of any in-store exemption certificate solution.

But how can you guarantee its success without overburdening your store personnel?

A system, built to exist independently of any hardware or software already in place at the store and at the point of purchase is essential. Most retailers can’t afford to replace existing systems just because you need validate exempt status on the fly, in real time. Furthermore, shouldn’t the system integrate transparently with all of the existing POS, back-office and corporate systems without great expense?

How much effort can you expect your store personnel, or worse, your customers to expend on filling out and submitting a new or updated certificate? If they could find the correct form automatically, prepopulated with their customer information already on file in your ERP or CRM system, what would that mean? No tedious date entry by the customer or the store personnel. A signature captured electronically through any commercial capture device and the process is complete.

Only one system is designed for all of this and more.

TEAMS Express is designed just for that purpose. TEAMS Express is built for transparent integration for real time access in any store environment using Web 2.0 technologies including Web Services and SOAP. This architecture ensures that your existing systems need not be replaced. In addition, ISSI has over 14 years servicing the retail industry with exemption certificate collection, management and audit support services that drive sales tax compliance while keeping customers smiling. So check it out.

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Posted in Retail Exemption Issues, Sales Tax Issues | No Comments »