The Compliance Check flags expense documents that may not meet the formal requirements for VAT recovery, so you can review them before they go into a claim.

In VAT4U, compliance means only whether an invoice or receipt meets the formal requirements for VAT deduction or recovery in the country of refund.

It does not pertain to other compliance topics outside of VAT recovery criteria. Always ensure that invoices meet jurisdictional standards for VAT purposes.

VAT4U has two kinds of compliance check: Standard and Advanced. The automatic check that runs after OCR is Standard, unless the expense's last check was Advanced.

The standard compliance check uses deterministic pattern matching against the OCR text of the document. It searches for specific keywords, claimant information, VAT numbers, and other indicators based on the country of refund rules.

This method is fast, does not consume AI Credits, and is well-suited for high-volume processing.

The advanced compliance check uses AI with document vision and semantic analysis to evaluate compliance. Instead of keyword matching, it analyses the full context of the document - understanding layout, stamps, watermarks, and meaning.

Key differences from Standard:

Note: When OCR has not yet been processed for some documents, the system will automatically run OCR first and then trigger the AI-powered compliance check once the OCR result is available.

You can see which type of check was performed for each expense in the Compliance Check Type column in the Manage Expenses table.

The possible values are Standard or Advanced. If no check has been run, the field will be empty.

The table lists each item the compliance check looks at, the non-compliance reason recorded when it is flagged, and what the flag means.
Non-compliance reasons are shown in the Non-Compliance Reasons column, in Data Entry and in the expense export.

After an Advanced check, the Compliance check results box in Data Entry also lists each item as passed or flagged.

When an item does not apply to an invoice, the Advanced results show it as not required, with the reason. For example: "Claimant company name on the document" with "Not required below the simplified invoice limit" or "Not required for public transport"

This is checked for foreign VAT refund claims (8th and 13th Directive) when VAT was charged on one of these categories: car repair (service only), cross-border flight, lawyer or consultancy services, marketing services, online services, other services, subscription, subscription reduced rate, EU reverse-charge transport service, and training.

KSeF (Krajowy System e-Faktur) is Poland's national e-invoicing system. It is centralized electronic invoicing platform, operated by the Polish Ministry of Finance.
It was introduced to close the VAT gap, standardize invoice exchange, and give tax authorities real-time visibility into B2B transactions.
Every structured invoice issued through KSeF receives a unique KSeF number and a QR code that link the document to its authoritative record in the national system - making invoice authenticity independently verifiable.
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KSeF usage becomes mandatory in Poland from 1 February 2026 for large taxpayers (turnover above PLN 200 million in 2024) and from 1 April 2026 for all remaining VAT-registered businesses. From these dates onward, a valid KSeF reference is a prerequisite for an invoice to be considered compliant for VAT purposes - and, critically, for VAT reclaim.
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Both check types look for this QR code when the country of refund is Poland.

For structured e-invoices, the compliance status also reflects the e-invoice's own validation. An e-invoice received as XML only, with no PDF, is assessed by these checks alone.

In the Advanced results, each e-invoice row also explains what was found. A check that could not be performed, for example because the VIES registry was unavailable, is shown as skipped with the reason.

Every expense has one of five compliance statuses. The automated checks set the first three. Only a reviewer can set the last two.

Keep in mind that the system's compliance checks rely on OCR and AI, meaning accuracy may vary depending on document quality.

Open an expense in the Data Entry module to see why it was flagged and to confirm the result.

After an Advanced check, a Compliance check results box shows the status, the country of refund, and one row per item checked. Each row reads as a finding, for example "No copy or duplicate marking found", "Claimant company name found on the document" or "VAT rate found". Items that do not apply to the invoice are shown as not required, with the reason (for example "Not required below the simplified invoice limit"). The box ends with the note: "These results are AI-generated and AI-checked. Treat them with caution."

After a Standard check, a yellow box lists the reasons the document is potentially not compliant.

In both cases, when issues were found, you can check the document and mark it as Compliant or Not compliant. The decision is applied when you save the expense.

A reviewer's decision is kept when the expense is edited or its document is processed again. Running a new batch of Compliance & Smart Checks on the expense resets it, though (see below).

Use Compliance & Smart Checks to check many expenses at once. Smart Checks run OCR where it is missing, evaluate compliance, and assess data quality.

The checks run in the background; you can follow them on the Running Jobs page. When they finish, the following fields will be updated: Compliance Status, Compliance Check Type, Non-Compliance Reasons, Data Quality Match, VAT Amount Match, Invoice Date Match.

Notes:

For a bulk import, turn on Run OCR Automatically after import (or Run SmartAI Extraction after import) in the last step, so documents are read and checked as soon as the import finishes. Checks never change a status a reviewer has confirmed, except a batch check as described above.

The Standard check is free. The Advanced check costs 0.25 AI Transactions per expense, which is 1 AI Transaction per 4 expenses checked.