- From reconstruction to a current tax position: Current, structured financial data makes tax-relevant balances visible during the period.
- Detect errors before they recur: Validation rules and AI agents continuously flag discrepancies and present them to the finance team for review.
- From a figure to a traceable audit trail: Every entry remains linked to its supporting document, decision and approval, so it can still be explained years later.
Tax is treated as a retrospective exercise
Corporate income tax returns are prepared after the financial year has ended. Only then does the work begin to establish what happened during that year. VAT follows a similar pattern. The tax position is therefore reconstructed retrospectively. Errors that only come to light at period-end have to be traced back over several months.
What Live Finance changes
Live Finance means knowing what is happening in the business at any given time. This requires all supporting documents and incoming correspondence to be captured. Every supplier invoice, every sales invoice and every letter from the tax authorities enters the data infrastructure directly, together with all supporting information. The current VAT liability can therefore be determined at any time, without first preparing a VAT return.
VAT returns, corporate income tax returns and the year-end close remain checkpoints. But they confirm a position that has already been reviewed during the period, rather than establishing it for the first time.
Data, automation and controls on one platform
Reliable tax reporting requires a data foundation built for that purpose. On an AI-native platform such as Aderis, AI is not added to existing software as an add-on; it is part of the core. Every figure remains linked to its source. AI added retrospectively can only provide as much traceability as the underlying software allows.
Detecting errors throughout the year
Many errors recur rather than arise at random. Common sources of VAT errors are well known: missing VAT on intragroup transactions, sales of operating assets, advance payments and reductions in revenue, as well as incorrect classification or an incorrect place of supply. Until now, teams have looked for these errors at period-end and found them only by chance.
Finance teams can now turn these patterns into validation rules. AI agents apply them to every entry, flag discrepancies and escalate them to the finance team for review. Every correction is documented. Errors are therefore resolved during the period, and the annual VAT reconciliation becomes a confirmation of work already done.
Autonomy still requires oversight
People can intervene at any point, but should not intervene at every point, or the efficiency gains will be lost. Accountability remains with the company. What improves is the basis for decisions. On the Aderis Live Finance Platform, every action is governed by rules and permissions. The data shows whether an agent or a person posted an entry, and why. The finance team decides which transactions it wants to review in future.
Traceability when questions arise years later
The real test often comes years later, for example during a VAT audit. Businesses are generally expected to provide revenue reconciliations for the previous five years within a few days. The difficulty rarely lies in the figure itself, but in explaining it. A note can therefore be added to each entry, and every figure remains linked to its supporting document, decision and approval throughout the entire retention period.
Conclusion
The statutory checkpoints remain: returns, annual reconciliation, declarations, record retention and audits. Live Finance changes what happens between them. For CFOs, this means fewer surprises at period-end, a sound basis for signing off and accounting records that can still explain their entries five years later.
