One of the hardest tasks for a sales tax manager is to keep track of all the different changes that happen in different tax jurisdictions across the country. Sales tax software can help but knowing the rules and being familiar with them yourself is important. As part of your job, you’re meant to manage all of the sales taxes for your company and make sure you’re up to date with what’s going on but how can you do it all? While using a sales tax software solution that makes it easy to keep up with changes is the first step in the process, keeping a running log of legislative changes and setting up alerts for the states you deal with the most is a great idea.
We find that the best way to do this is to sign up for alerts on state websites for legislative changes. If there’s a way to subscribe to legislative updates via email newsletters or an RSS feed for the states you deal with the most, it’s a good idea to sign up so you get the latest news on what’s going on. You can also create a Google alert to monitor the web for updates and stories about sales tax changes that are delivered to your inbox. Once you’ve started getting alerts, an Excel sheet is a good way to manage these changes. After reading through a change, put the information you need into a legislation tracking spreadsheet that has all the information you might need later. Give a brief summary of the change and the place where you can find it for later references, like the state code number or a hyperlink to the resource you prefer.
While post-its and notes might be a good approach for a while, you’ll find yourself swimming in them after some time and digital solutions are much easier to manage. Try to make this a regular part of your routine so you can stay on top of what changes come out for the states you deal with most. Sales tax software is a huge help in this process, especially sales tax software backed up by professionals who spend their days keeping tabs on sales tax changes. But being aware of sales tax changes will help you be a more valuable employee and help you give better input to your company’s future.