(No more Word invoices. No more paper chaos. Just control.)

By Rui Manuel Teixeira

VAT compliance cost reduction: how we saved €100K/year

The background

Our client, a global radiation therapy leader, sells multimillion-euro systems with complex EU delivery setups.

Here’s what made the order-to-cash process a nightmare:

→ Products shipped from the U.S., took 2 months at sea

→ Installations stretched across 2 years, at best

→ Dozens of milestones per project  = dozens of installment invoices

→ Invoices were created manually… in Word

→ Repeat this process in 7 EU countries

→ Nothing reconciled cleanly with the GL

Needless to say: Exceptions were the norm.

Add invoice mess + tight VAT filing deadlines + cross-border complexity = a system that was built for failure.

What Went Wrong

Every customer invoice had to be pre-approved by a Big4 advisor.

Sometimes before it was sent. Sometimes after.

Often, multiple versions of the same invoice were sent to customers.

Confusing. Inefficient. Unprofessional.

And the accounting records?

→ Missing invoice numbers

→ Vague descriptions

→ No reliable audit trail

Trust in the numbers? Zero.

What We Did

We went in deep—line by line.

Step 1:

→ Analyzed over 100,000 lines of accounting records

→ Reconciled them with every single invoice issued the prior fiscal year

→ Identified 140+ VAT scenarios based on actual transaction logic

→ Built a custom, scenario-based invoicing framework

Step 2:

→ Embedded this logic into the ERP (in 2025 this function is standard in any modern ERP!)

→ Enforced mandatory VAT fields + compliance logic

→ Eliminated manual Word invoices entirely

→ Created automated, auditable, and regulator-ready invoice workflows

The Outcome

✅ Big4 validated the new system logic

✅ No more pre-checking every invoice

✅ Paper-based reviews replaced by random sample testing

✅ €100K/year saved in VAT compliance overhead

✅ Finance teams finally aligned on revenue recognition + VAT reconciliation

✅ Audit readiness? Now built into the process

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#GOATConsultants™-Level Insights:

When you combine tax, tech, and execution, you “save time” and you transform control into capital.

If your teams still rely on manual invoicing, or your auditors require pre-validation… that’s not compliance. That’s a liability.”

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  How we recovered €800K from German VAT authorities

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