How AI powered anomaly detection catches tax errors

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What indirect tax specialists are saying about compliance

Introducing anomaly detection in Thomson Reuters ONESOURCE

Why indirect tax teams need AI-powered anomaly detection

How your indirect tax process changes

Day-in-the-life before automated anomaly detection

Day in the life after automated anomaly detection

How our AI-powered anomaly detection works

Thomson Reuters is here to help with your tax automation needs

What indirect tax specialists are saying about compliance

According to the Thomson Reuters Institute study of indirect tax professionals dealing with regulatory compliance and automation, a key measure of success is accuracy of filings (89% of survey respondents), minimizing/avoiding penalties (63%), and reducing time spent on compliance (51%).

We hear you loud and clear. With most tax professionals wanting to automate indirect tax processes (56%), Thomson Reuters is hard at work to provide you with the best-in-class automations to better arm you against compliance risk and ease the manual workload of indirect tax processes.

Introducing anomaly detection in Thomson Reuters ONESOURCE

We’re excited to announce a new anomaly detection feature in ONESOURCE that provides AI-driven real-time anomaly detection and tailored insights that minimize compliance risks right at the start and protect you from costly errors through to completion.

Why indirect tax teams need AI-powered anomaly detection

We know your end-to-end process is highly susceptible to errors and inefficiencies, especially since anomaly detection processes are largely manual, and fraught with varying and changing tax rates. You risk missing anomalies and retroactively adjusting calculations for underpayments and overpayments.

We also know that it’s a time-consuming process to review transactions, trace discrepancies, validate data against multiple sources, and investigate issues identified during audits or reconciliations. This reactive posture leads to last-minute surprises, increased audit risk, and significant resource drain.

How your indirect tax process changes

With automated anomaly detection, you transition from being a data troubleshooter to a strategic advisor, spending less time on manual checks and audit firefighting, and more time on business support and tax risk management. The new workflow becomes more efficient, accurate, and resilient to compliance challenges across your department and global operations.

Day-in-the-life before automated anomaly detection

Assume you’re a tax professional at a global retailer who reviews a quarterly VAT report and notices inconsistencies. You and your team manually match invoice data, check tax rates, identify root causes (like misclassified products), and document findings. It is labor intensive and often requires you and others on the team to work overtime as deadlines approach. Because at the end of the day, the goal is compliance and minimizing the risk of audits and/or penalties.

Day in the life after automated anomaly detection

Now assume you are the same tax professional using Thomson Reuters ONESOURCE Determination with anomaly detection. The solution includes customized insights for your unique tax configuration and transaction patterns and alerts you in real-time while transactions are in process that an outlier dataset was detected.

Examples include:

A rate misapplication in a shipment with an unusually low tax amount
Changes in recurring purchases
High dollar spends in R&D that don’t match previous spend categories
Outdated exception certificates

The anomaly is routed to the reviewer, who then assesses and corrects the problem as it occurs. The indirect tax professional then assess the data and decides next steps. Then, the data continues to flow downstream without further error. No one has to hunt and peck for the anomaly, and it isn’t discovered months later in a compliance check, or during an audit. It was discovered in near real-time which reduces manual workload and error rates to below 1%.

How our AI-powered anomaly detection works

Real-time anomaly detection that continuously monitors transactions to identify and alert you of any deviations from expected patterns and allows you to respond quickly before downstream issues arise.

Tailored insights that provide customized insights based on your unique tax configuration and transaction patterns.

Accuracy and compliance ensure precise tax calculations of tax rates, authority setups, and your specific anomaly detection algorithms.

Automated alerts that deliver timely notifications of potential issues, allowing you to address the outliers swiftly and maintain compliance.

Thomson Reuters is here to help with your tax automation needs

Not only will you find anomaly detection capabilities, but Thomson Reuters has several AI-powered capabilities for indirect tax professionals through the integration of CoCounsel for GenAI assistance, product classification, certificate management, and more. We are working hard to provide tax solutions with AI-powered automations that will transform your manual effort, sharpen KPIs, and elevate your profession from back-office obligations to strategic business partners.

If you and your team are eager to reduce compliance risks, schedule a demo of ONESOURCE Determination with anomaly detection.