AI can improve tax compliance when businesses have clean, structured data.
E-invoicing can reduce manual work, errors and invoice discrepancies.
Tax transformation requires collaboration across finance, IT, sales and procurement.
Artificial intelligence is changing how businesses manage tax, finance and compliance. As companies expand across countries, managing different tax rules, reporting systems and e-invoicing requirements has become more complex.
In this Analytics Insight Conversations podcast, Niraj Hutheesing, Founder and MD of Cygnet.One, shares his journey and explains how AI can help businesses make tax and finance processes faster, smarter and more efficient.
Cygnet started around 26 years ago as an extension of my family business, which was into chemicals manufacturing and trading. At that time, we needed software that was not available in the market. So, we hired a few developers and built our own software. We liked the solution and eventually started selling it.
Later, we moved into offshore software development and product engineering for global clients. Around 10 years ago, when India introduced digital GST, we entered the tax technology space. We were among the first providers to go live on the GSTN portal. Today, around 17% of India's e-invoices are processed through our platform.
I have seen tax systems become much more digital over the years. Governments now collect detailed invoice and transaction data. India’s GST rollout showed that large-scale tax digitisation was possible, and many countries followed a similar path.
I see two major models globally. In one, businesses clear invoices with tax authorities before completing transactions. In the other, businesses complete transactions and report the invoices later. Europe has also developed the Peppol network to support digital invoice exchange.
I use AI tools extensively in my daily work, including ChatGPT and Claude. I also build different AI agents for my workflows.
From my experience, the biggest challenge for companies is data quality. Many businesses still depend heavily on Excel instead of clean, structured data connected to their ERP systems. AI gives much better results when the underlying data is reliable.
I also see AI helping with tax notices. It can review previous filings, identify relevant case law and help prepare responses. It can also handle repetitive finance work while consistently following a company’s internal processes.
I see e-invoicing as much more than simply creating a digital invoice. It standardises invoice data so ERP and procurement systems can process it directly. This reduces manual data entry and errors.
Because invoices are also registered with tax authorities, businesses can reduce discrepancies between different invoice copies. Digital invoices also make it easier to create structured approval and verification processes.
We have helped large clients reduce human involvement in some accounts payable processes from around 70–80% to about 10–15%. Humans mainly remain involved when an exception requires judgment.
We have also seen major improvements internally. Some development work that previously took around 1,000 hours can now be completed in roughly 20–30 hours with AI-assisted processes.
I believe tax transformation cannot remain the responsibility of the tax team alone. IT needs to integrate the systems with existing ERPs. Sales and accounts receivable teams need to manage electronic invoices, while procurement and accounts payable teams need to handle compliant purchases.
Treasury and legal teams are also affected because non-compliance can result in penalties and regulatory action. In my view, tax transformation is an organisation-wide responsibility.
I believe AI will become a much bigger part of financial transformation. The focus will move beyond basic compliance toward identifying risks, improving processes and providing faster business insights.
However, I believe companies need strong data and well-defined processes first. Once that foundation is in place, AI can help tax and finance teams become more efficient, consistent and proactive.