Our Approach

Precision over
assumption. Evidence
over estimation.

Most tax audits are surface-level spot checks. Ours is a forensic analysis — every SKU, every jurisdiction, every transaction. Here's exactly how we do it.

Home/Approach
01

Forensic, Not Procedural

We don't run a checklist. We interrogate your data the way an investigator would — looking for patterns, anomalies, and structural errors that routine compliance software is blind to by design.

02

Data-First, Always

Every finding we deliver is traceable to a specific transaction, a specific SKU, and a specific jurisdiction ruling. We never estimate. We never extrapolate. We show our work.

03

Skin in the Game

Performance-only pricing isn't a marketing tactic. It's our operating philosophy. If we don't find recoverable savings, we don't eat. That alignment produces a different quality of work.

A five-phase audit built for high-velocity catalogs.

Most tax audits treat all SKUs equally. That's the first mistake. A 5,000-SKU catalog has thousands of nuanced classification decisions buried inside it — and each one is a potential recovery vector.

Our methodology is sequenced deliberately: we start broad and get precise, so we never waste time on low-impact findings while missing the ones that matter.

7–14
Days from connect to completed audit
100%
Of SKUs analyzed, not a statistical sample
13K+
Jurisdictions cross-referenced per audit
3 yrs
Standard lookback window for recovery

Phase 1 — Data Ingestion

Read-only API connection to your Avalara or TaxJar account pulls your full transaction history. We ingest every line item — SKU, jurisdiction, rate applied, amount remitted — into our audit environment.

Day 1–2

Phase 2 — SKU Classification Audit

Every active SKU is run through our classification engine, which cross-references product attributes against the tax code definitions in each state where you have nexus. We flag every mismatch between what was applied and what should apply.

Day 2–6

Phase 3 — Exemption Gap Analysis

We map your product categories against all available exemption categories in every active jurisdiction — manufacturing inputs, resale, agricultural, medical, and more. Most brands qualify for exemptions they've never claimed.

Day 4–8

Phase 4 — Jurisdictional Rate Validation

We compare every rate applied in your transaction history against the authoritative rate for that jurisdiction on that date. Special district boundaries, rate change effective dates, and address-level validation are all checked.

Day 6–10

Phase 5 — Savings Report Assembly

Every finding is compiled into a structured savings report: each error documented with SKU ID, jurisdiction, erroneous rate, correct rate, over-remitted amount, and recovery pathway. Findings are ranked by dollar value so you know exactly where to start.

Day 10–14

Purpose-built for the complexity of e-commerce tax.

Off-the-shelf tax software is built to classify transactions at the point of sale — quickly, at scale, with minimal human intervention. That's appropriate for compliance. It's completely wrong for recovery.

Our engine is built to look backward, with time. It understands that a "sports nutrition product" sold in California in Q1 2022 has a different tax treatment than the same product sold in Q3 2023 — and it tracks those changes across every jurisdiction simultaneously.

Capability Comparison
Standard Platform
TaxTrimIQ
SKU-level review
Historical rate validation
Exemption opportunity mapping
Special district boundary check
Partial
Amended return coordination
Ongoing drift monitoring
Audit Engine Modules
Six layers. Every angle covered.
SKU Classification Engine

Maps every product against 2,400+ tax code definitions across all 50 states, flagging mismatches between applied codes and defensible alternatives.

Primary recovery driver · 42% of savings
Exemption Opportunity Scanner

Identifies all applicable exemption categories per jurisdiction that your current setup isn't claiming — resale, manufacturing, agricultural, medical, and more.

High-value · Often overlooked entirely
Historical Rate Validator

Compares every rate applied in your transaction history against the verified authoritative rate for that jurisdiction on the exact transaction date.

Catches lag errors · 3-year lookback
Special District Boundary Mapper

Validates that address-level tax assignments align with actual special district boundaries — not just city or county approximations, which are frequently wrong.

Address-level precision · 13,000+ districts
Nexus Threshold Checker

Confirms your nexus registrations are current and correct. Over-registered nexus means unnecessary remittance obligations; gaps create exposure risk.

Compliance + optimization angle
Drift Monitoring & Alert System

Post-audit, continuous monitoring watches for rate changes, boundary redraws, and new exemption opportunities — alerting before drift accumulates again.

Ongoing · Included in year one

The rules we operate by — without exception.

These aren't values we aspire to. They're constraints we've built into how we work.

01
Read-Only, Always

We never touch what we haven’t been invited to change.

During the audit phase, our access is strictly read-only. We ingest, analyze, and report. We make zero modifications to your tax platform, your rate tables, or your product catalog until you’ve reviewed the savings report and signed off on an implementation plan.

This isn’t just a security posture. It’s a respect for your operational continuity. We don’t create surprises.

02
Evidence, Not Estimates

Every dollar in your savings report is cited to its source.

We don’t hand you a number and ask you to trust us. Every finding in your savings report includes the transaction ID, the SKU, the jurisdiction, the code that was applied, the code that should apply, and the statutory citation that supports the reclassification.

Your CFO, your tax counsel, and your board can audit our audit. That’s intentional.

03
No Finding, No Fee

Our incentives are perfectly aligned with your outcome.

We earn 20–25% of the first-year savings we document and implement. We earn nothing from the audit, the report, the consultation, or the platform integration. If our engine finds nothing recoverable, you receive a clean bill of health and owe us nothing.

This means our team is deeply motivated to look harder, go deeper, and find the recoveries others miss.

04
Defend Every Finding

We only recommend recoveries we’d put our name on in an audit.

Tax recovery creates refund exposure — if you reclassify a product incorrectly and a state audits you, you could owe back taxes plus penalties. We only recommend recoveries that are defensible under the statutory language and case precedent in that jurisdiction.

We do not play gray areas. We document clean, clear, defensible positions only.

Not a tax firm. Not a SaaS tool. Something new.

vs. Tax Attorneys

Speed and scale, without the hourly rate.

A tax attorney bills by the hour. For a catalog with 5,000 SKUs across 25 states, that's an enormous upfront cost with uncertain ROI. Our engine does in 14 days what would take a firm months — and you pay nothing unless we deliver value.

vs. Compliance Platforms

Built to recover, not just to comply.

Avalara and TaxJar are forward-looking compliance engines. They classify transactions at point of sale, quickly. They are not designed to look backward and find where they were wrong. That's a structural blind spot — and it's the exact gap we fill.

vs. In-House Finance Teams

Jurisdiction depth that no generalist has time for.

Even a well-resourced finance team can't maintain real-time knowledge of 13,000+ jurisdictions, hundreds of annual rate changes, and thousands of product-specific classification nuances. We do nothing else. That focus is the advantage.

vs. Generic Consulting Firms

A product, not a project.

Consultants bill for discovery, analysis, and recommendations. Their incentive is to bill more hours, not to deliver faster. Our audit is a repeatable, engineered process — not a custom engagement that reinvents the wheel for every client.

Your data is the foundation of your business. We treat it that way.

Every access protocol, every data handling policy, and every employee standard is built around one principle: your trust is non-negotiable.

Read-Only API Access

We request the minimum permissions necessary. Scoped, read-only API tokens mean we can see your data — but we cannot modify, export, or delete anything in your systems.

SOC 2 Compliant Infrastructure

Our audit environment runs on SOC 2 Type II certified infrastructure. Data in transit is encrypted via TLS 1.3. Data at rest is encrypted using AES-256.

No Data Retention After Engagement

Your transaction data is purged from our systems within 30 days of audit completion. We provide written confirmation of deletion upon request.

Now you know how we work

Let's put the engine to
work on your catalog.

The audit is free. The report is yours. You decide if the savings are worth acting on.

500+ SKU brands using Avalara or TaxJar. No commitment required.