Discover how to make use of the feature which verifies the Vendor Tax IDs you're storing in Gatekeeper
Restore Visibility Safeguard Compliance
Estimated Read Time: 5 minutes ▶️ Total Watch Time: 8 minutes
Sections in this Article
Using the Status in Notifications
Expert Feature: Workflow Triggers
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
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