So how much do you tip your supplier for fuel? There are countless deferred and non-deferred taxes in the U.S. that change based on where you purchased the fuel, how you transported it, what type you purchased, and where it was delivered. Europe can be as simple as VAT and duty, to as complex as being taxed by each country through which the delivery travels. So how are you reconciling your supplier invoices to ensure they invoiced the correct taxes?

What I see in the industry are a lot of companies manually looking at an invoice and guessing it is right, or their back office ‘reconciles’ the volume and prices but assumes taxes is correct. Assuming the supplier has discovered the secret to taxes can be dangerous and costly. You could be tipping your supplier by 15% - on accident.

Best practice is to automatically audit supplier invoices through reconciliation to ensure the correct taxes are on the invoice without having to pull out a calculator and manually figure it out. Look at software packages that streamline invoice reconciliation processes for volumes, prices and taxes and save your calculator for the next time you have to tip a waiter!