Tax ID Number Matching

Discover how to make use of the feature which verifies the Vendor Tax IDs you're storing in Gatekeeper

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   Estimated Read Time: 5 minutes                     ▶️     Total Watch Time: 8 minutes

 


 

Sections in this Article

Introduction

Matching Vendors

TIN Matching in Workflows

Matching Vendors

Status Banner

Using the Status in Notifications

Managing Matches

Expert Feature: Workflow Triggers

TIN Matching Logs

FAQ

 


 

Introduction

 

Tax ID Verification (also known as TIN Matching) is a feature which is designed to give you more confidence in the Vendor data you're storing in Gatekeeper.

With TIN Matching enabled, Gatekeeper will automatically check the Tax Identification numbers for your Vendors against government databases and provide you with feedback letting you know whether the values you're storing match official Tax records.

This means you can find & remedy incorrect data much easier so that when it's needed, you aren't met with unnecessary confusion, delays or even fines if you submit incorrect filings with your tax office!

 

The below article walks through the basics of how this works, as well as some pro tips for getting the most from the TIN Checks!

 

NB. TIN Verification is available on all Gatekeeper plans, free of charge!

However, it is switched off by default. If you want to have this added to your Gatekeeper tenant, simply reach out to your CSM (or contact our Success Team here)

 

 


 

Matching TINs for your Vendors

 

Requirements

The key elements required for Gatekeeper to perform the verification check is the population of the below Core Vendor Fields:

1) Legal Name

2) Tax ID

3) Registered Address

Here, the selected "Country" instructs Gatekeeper which which tax agencies* to check

*The first iteration of this TIN Verification feature only connects with the IRS, therefore only Vendors with a Registered Address - Country of "US" will be matched

 

 


 

Matching Vendors in the Repository

One thing you will note below is that, after simply populating the required fields, Gatekeeper will automatically perform the verification check (where it can).

For the first 3 methods below, users need to possess the Administrator permission since this dictates whether they can directly populate/edit data in the repository

 

Option 1 - Manually Populating the Core Fields

Clicking to edit a Vendor record, you can manually populate the necessary core fields, like below:

 

Option 2 - Bulk Populating the Core Fields

If you wish to match many vendors, you can use the Bulk Import feature to create new Vendors or update your existing Vendors with values populated in the Legal Name, Tax ID & Registered Address fields.

 

Pictured Below: Having populated some of the required fields in a spreadsheet, you can import this as a csv to bulk-update your Vendor records & trigger a TIN Verification check

For more information on how to perform bulk imports, see our below article

 📖 Vendor Bulk Data Export & Imports

 

Option 3 - Manually Attempting/Re-attempting a Verification

If you already have the necessary metadata in place for a TIN Verification, updating any of the Vendor's TIN-Matching fields (Legal Name, Tax ID or Registered Address: Country) will cause Gatekeeper to automatically perform the check.

However, you can also manually push Gatekeeper to re-attempt a check within the Data tab:

 

Option 4 - Bulk Matching (with existing Data)

If you already have the necessary data in place and wish to push Gatekeeper to match all these Vendors en-masse you can contact your CSM who can initiate a bulk-match process for you

You can also reach out to our Customer Success team to request this here

 


 

TIN Matching in Workflows

The steps users need to take for Gatekeeper to perform a TIN Verification during a workflow is to ensure the necessary core fields are populated AND that a vendor record exists.

i.e. Just populating the core fields is not enough if they only exist on a Workflow form;

➡️ For New Vendors, you need to ensure a Create Vendor action takes place 

➡️ For Existing Vendors, you will need to make sure an Update Vendor action takes place

Matching New Vendors (Example)

 

 

Matching Existing Vendors (Example)

 

 

 

Status Banner

Once the above conditions have been met for a new/existing vendor,  a Status banner will automatically be added to the top of the Workflow card

 

Pictured Below: A Successful Match Banner

 

 

Email Notification Content

When a TIN Match has been attempted, you can include the results in notification emails sent from the workflow. This means recipients can instantly check whether the verification was susccessful before they even log into Gatekeeper

To include this, enter the tag {{ tin_matching.summary }} where you wish for this to appear in the notification

 

Pictured Below: Embedding this in a Workflow Email Template

 

Pictured Below: How this appears to recipients

 


 

Viewing & Managing Matches

Below you can find information where to view TIN Match results (and what to do with these).

 

TIN Matching can provide results of the check in the below 4 statuses: 

TIN Matched - TIN Match has been successful

Did not Match - The TIN Verification has been performed but the data in Gatekeeper (Legal Name + Tax ID) does not match with the Tax Agency check

Pending - The TIN Verification request has been submitted. This will be updated once the results are returned

In Review - This is a status to inform that TIN Checks have been temporarily paused for reasons such as:

The same Tax ID has been submitted for TIN Match requests 3 or more times

The same Legal Name has been submitted  for TIN Match requests 3 or more times

These "In Review" pauses exists to prevent a disruption to our integration with the tax agencies...

The pause will usually clear after ~30 minutes, but if you have triggered this status for many Vendors, it could take longer (up to 48 Hours)

 

Within a Vendor Record

Within the Data tab of a Vendor record, you can quickly see whether there has been a verification within the TIN Matching section

 

Within the Repository List View

To get oversight on a larger set of Vendors in your repository, you can hit Configure Columns to select fields from the TIN Matching group.

We also recommend saving this view if you will regularly checking on the TIN Matching statuses of your Vendors:

By having these TIN Matching fields in your view (and the core fields Tax ID, Legal Name, Registered Address), you can easily navigate which Vendors are missing data/connections.

 

 

Workflow Triggers

To avoid having to manually check/monitor for Unsuccessful matches, you can set up an automated Workflow Trigger based on the status of TIN Matching results

For example, a trigger using the condition "TIN Status ➡️ is one of ➡️ Did Not Match" can be used to automatically start a review of failed Vendor matches - see below example of a simple process which uses this status to perform a brief review & correction:

 

TIN Matching Log

For Configuration level admins, you can look in the logs to check what data has been transferred during a TIN check and view error logs

Navigate to Settings > Configuration > TIN Matching

Here you can hit Request Payload to see what data Gatekeeper sent for the TIN Check

Or you can hit Response to see what results came back from the external agency

 

 


 

FAQ 💬

 

Q: Which Countries are available for TIN Matching?

A: Currently only US vendors can be checked via the IRS. However, we plan on adding integrations so that matches can be performed for additional countries

To suggest another country to be added to this feature, please comment on this Forum post: Taxpayer Identification Number (TIN) Matching

 

 

Q: We already have a custom field where we store Tax IDs, can this be used for TIN Verification?
A: No. Only the Core field can be used for this.

We recommend a bulk update to easily copy your existing data from the Custom field over to the Core field