Most finance leaders can describe their sales tax process in a single sentence: “We use AvaTax, it works, we move on.” Use tax on the purchase side rarely earns that same confidence. It tends to be fragmented, applied inconsistently, and handled after the fact, introducing risk and inefficiency into everyday operations.
That disconnect shows up consistently across Coupa and finance transformation engagements, and it’s exactly the gap Cross Connect for AvaTax was built to close.
Learn what it means to embed tax into procure-to-pay, why purchase-side tax quietly becomes a liability, and how leading finance organizations are moving tax upstream in the process.
The challenge: Tax isn’t embedded in the process
Across organizations, a familiar pattern emerges. Tax on purchases isn’t determined at the point of decision. Responsibility is spread across teams with no clear owner, and issues surface late, usually during reconciliation or audit prep, when options are limited and pressure is high.
The financial impact is real:
- Overpaid tax that’s rarely recovered
- Underaccrued tax that creates audit exposure
- Operational drag across accounts payable and tax teams
This isn’t simply a tooling problem. It reflects a broader gap in how tax is built into procurement. When tax sits outside the process, it becomes something you reconstruct rather than something you control. This challenge isn’t unique to any one organization.
A recent Avalara survey found that 53% of finance, tax, and procurement leaders cite complex, ever-changing tax rules as one of their most significant challenges, and more than half said better integration with purchasing systems would meaningfully improve their compliance posture.
A shift is already underway
Leading finance organizations are addressing this by moving tax upstream, from a downstream reporting activity to a transaction-level control. The change reshapes how teams operate:
- Finance gains visibility into total cost before commitment.
- Accounts payable sees fewer exceptions and smoother processing.
- Tax teams shift from reconciliation to proactive risk management.
Embedding tax earlier is no longer a “nice to have.” It’s becoming a requirement for maintaining control, compliance, and efficiency at scale. The organizations getting ahead treat tax as part of the decision, not a problem to clean up later.
This mirrors a broader trend across procurement technology, where teams are increasingly building governance and controls directly into transaction workflows rather than layering them on afterward, a theme we’ve also explored in the context of AI-enabled accounts payable.
Where Cross Connect fits
Cross Connect integrates Avalara’s AvaTax directly into Coupa’s procure-to-pay process. Rather than addressing tax after the fact, it embeds tax determination into the flow of transactions.
Instead of reconstructing tax positions at month-end, your organization can:
- See tax earlier in the purchasing process
- Validate tax in real time
- Maintain a consistent, audit-ready position across spend
The result is a more transparent, efficient approach to managing indirect tax, without disrupting how your teams already work inside Coupa.
What this means for finance teams
The day-to-day impact is meaningful and measurable:
- Tax teams spend less time on reconciliation and more on planning and exposure management.
- Accounts payable experiences fewer exceptions and faster cycle times.
- Procurement gains clearer visibility into total cost at the point of decision.
- Finance leadership holds a more defensible, audit-ready tax position.
In short, you trade reactive cleanup for proactive control and free your teams to focus on higher-value work like strategic sourcing and supplier management, an area covered in more depth in our Procurement & Cost Transformation work.
Looking ahead
Tax shouldn’t be something you reconstruct at the end of the month. It should be part of the transaction itself.
Cross Connect is designed to make that change practical, bringing tax into the process where it belongs, with the control and confidence finance leaders expect.
If your purchase-side tax still lives outside the transaction, it’s worth a closer look. To see how Cross Connect for AvaTax can close the use tax gap inside your Coupa environment, contact CrossCountry today.