Recovery of 12,340 PLN overpaid VAT tax
We conducted an audit of books for the last 2 years. We found errors in fuel settlements that allowed for filing corrections and a real cash return.
The company Trans-Opole Logistyka has a fleet of 23 tractor units. Despite high turnover, the owner felt that profit was leaking away due to the mess in fuel settlements. In October 2024, we entered the company to check invoices from the last 24 months.
The challenge
The main problem was a lack of control over 487 invoices monthly. Drivers fueled up at various stations, and the office lost receipts and incorrectly recorded VAT deductions for passenger cars used in the company. Due to errors in mileage records, the tax office could question 97.3% of deductions, which blocked the company's cash return. The owner, Mr. Mariusz, spent 7 hours a week looking for missing papers instead of watching transport orders.
Our approach
Our team, under the eye of Katarzyna Nowak, took over 11 binders of documentation. We didn't play with generalities – we checked each of the 1,138 documents one by one. We compared fueling dates with GPS records from the trucks. We found 17 key errors in VAT-26 declarations that prevented full deduction of fuel tax. The work took us exactly 34 hours of reliable data analysis.
The solution
We prepared 24 corrections to VAT declarations for the years 2022-2023 and sent them to the Tax Office in Opole. We introduced a simple digital system that now automatically checks if the registration number on the invoice matches the list of company cars. No more manual data entry – now Ms. Barbara from administration spends only 42 minutes a day on this, and we are sure the numbers in the tables are true.
Results
Thanks to the corrections, Trans-Opole Logistyka received a real transfer from the office into its account. We eliminated the risk of penalties for erroneous records, and the invoice workflow process was shortened by more than half.
Timeline
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October 3, 2024Taking over archival documentation and start of VAT audit.
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October 14, 2024Detection of discrepancies in 17 fuel declarations.
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October 28, 2024Submission of corrections and implementation of document workflow automation.
"I always thought accounting was just a cost. Foundations of Success showed me it's an investment. They recovered my money in two weeks, and now I finally have order in my binders."