To what extent have Anrok's services been able to automate compliance, and what has proven to be resistant to automation?

Three things come to mind for the user: registration, calculation, and filing of sales tax.

Let’s start with registration. When a seller has crossed the nexus threshold in a jurisdiction, Anrok can automatically alert the seller. We track those thresholds, and that allows the user to initiate a registration in that jurisdiction to ensure compliance. This is somewhere where I think it's important to have a human in loop to say, "Yes, this is a strategic decision I'm making to register and comply." So that is something initiated by the user and in their control. It's important to register soon after you've crossed nexus, to minimize the time you’re waiting for your registration to be processed, but still have an obligation to remit tax on sales. 

The other thing on registration -- we've done the analysis of what is common amongst the different state registrations and what might be specific to a particular state. This has allowed us to simplify the process when a user decides to register as we already hold all the common information that is required. We only ask them for the additional information that that specific jurisdiction needs. In this sense, we've reduced the data collection piece -- not totally automated it away, but reduced this piece -- as we have the tax ID number, director information of the company and all of that standard stuff, and just need a few more pieces of information to help them register in that jurisdiction.

The calculation piece is fully automated. That said, if a seller's sales team wants to look up a tax rate to answer a customer query or provide a quote, we have a sales tax calculator in the application that allows them to plug in the customer address, select one of their existing products and factor in tax obligations to instantly return the appropriate tax to quote their customer.

On filing, this is fully automated for the customer. That said, if the user wants to review and amend the return before it is filed, they can do so.

Those are the few things that come to mind on the balance between what should be automated and what users still want to have some control over.