Audit your overlooked input VAT

Audit your overlooked input VAT - Runview

Protect yourself against financial losses and risks stemming from digital accounting. Combining expert tax consultants and its own unique technology, Runview has made detecting overlooked input VAT its core business for 20 years, helping businesses like yours safeguard their financial resources.

Finding overlooked input VAT
in accounting records

Overlooked input VAT - Runview

The sources of input VAT irregularities

At first sight, recording the VAT invoiced by a supplier might appear straightforward. However, VAT is a complex area and can leave businesses vulnerable. There are many factors determining the rules that apply, and a raft of special cases. Input VAT is sometimes simply not identified. Once the deadline for claiming it back has passed, it is lost.

Many causes can lead to the entitlement to claim back input VAT being overlooked, including:

  • Complicated accounts posting process;
  • Poorly configured accounting software;
  • The complexity of the rules surrounding VAT claims (vehicles, fuel, accommodation, etc.);
  • Incomplete, unclear invoices, or written in a foreign language.

Auditing of input VAT

We have been auditing the accounting records of our CAC40 and SBF 120 clients since 2002, finding accounting irregularities that have led to input VAT being wrongly recorded as a cost or capital expenditure. Our consultants’ expertise in taxation makes it possible to remedy unobtrusive mistakes connected to complicated tax rules or unusual invoicing arrangements.

Auditing of input VAT - Runview
Runview audit methodology - Runview

A methodology blending technology and our people’s expertise

This combination of our consultants’ experience and high-performance data-mining technology enables us to conduct comprehensive audits. This technology, which has been in continuous development for 15 years, incorporates artificial intelligence to build independent learning as assignments progress.

Our algorithms examine all the fields related to an accounts entry in order to report all the irregularities encountered. The findings are then filtered and “cleaned” with the aim of eliminating false positives and any irregularities the client has already dealt with.

Either remotely or working on your premises, our consultants then independently investigate each irregularity, to check the potential errors detected, cross-matched with the relevant invoices. Our teams possess in-depth knowledge of tax in general and VAT in particular, including some highly specific features of claimable input VAT, enabling them to detect some unobvious mistakes that are nearly impossible to find otherwise.

Our audits are designed to involve your staff as little as possible, from starting the assignment through to reporting the findings. Other than access to the accounts data and the relevant financial documents, our clients’ involvement is limited to ratifying the potential irregularities identified, through our  Exaus® client portal. In addition, our clients always retain control over any actions undertaken with their suppliers, and they are always supported and guided by the consultants appointed for their audit.

Mission monitoring via Exaus client portal - Runview

Reasons for conducting an audit
of overlooked input VAT

Cash impact on cash flow and earnings - Runview

Direct impact on cash and net earnings

The amounts lost as a result of omitting to claim back input VAT can be substantial, perhaps up to 3% of your full-year transactions falling within the scope of VAT. Our audits make it possible to claim overlooked input VAT for the two years preceding the audit (the VAT claim deadline) thereby preventing these losses from harming your cash flow.

Consolidate the application of tax regulations for improved compliance

A Runview VAT audit constitutes a thorough review, finding both recurrent and one-off errors that occur in your business, with the aim of correcting any shortcomings in your processes and enhancing your in-house procedures. Our investigation gives you the opportunity to check that your company is following tax regulations properly, and in accordance with accepted taxation conventions and doctrine.

Consolidate the application of tax regulations for improved compliance - Runview

Client references

Marc Fournier, Head of Financial Accounting and Reporting at Novartis Pharma
quote
In cases where input VAT had mistakenly not been claimed, Runview gave us very clear records with full details documenting the accounts entries. I have no concerns regarding our ability to trace back to the origin of any problem in the event of a tax inspection.
Philippe Dos Santos, Accounts Payable Manager at Engie’s shared services centre
quote
Runview didn't just go by the complexity of the invoices. Their teams contacted our internal buyers to retrieve source files for invoices, of which we only had the first page, in order to be able to identify input VAT.
A win-win audit - Runview

A win-win audit

Payment for our work takes the form of a success fee, meaning we are paid solely a percentage of the money that is actually recovered. This guarantees the audit will generate a positive return, and you can appoint us to conduct one without incurring any costs.

An audit takes 12 to 16 weeks altogether to complete.

An audit of overlooked input VAT can be run at the same time as an audit of supplier over-payments.