FAIA strategy and execution

What is FAIA in Luxembourg?

FAIA is the declination of the OECD SAF-T (Standard Audit File for Tax) standard in Luxembourg. FAIA stands for « Fichier d’Audit Informatisé de l’Administration de l’Enregistrement et des Domaines ».

It consists of an electronic file format (XML) of all the accounting data of your company's ERP system. This file has to follow a precise syntax and semantic structure and can be requested by the VAT authorities at any time. Its purpose is to present the information in a structured way to be easily controlled by algorithms.

Improve compliance with FAIA reporting regulations

It is not uncommon for a company that is registered for VAT to be asked to submit a FAIA file (Fichier d'Audit Informatisé AED). This usually happens as part of a VAT audit and at very short notice.

Following the enforcement of a new regulation back in January 2011, many taxpayers are supposed to be ready to submit such a FAIA file upon request.

Creating this file can be very technical and time consuming, and the risk of rejection of the file after submission is very high. You may have already encountered some challenges including the absence of FAIA export functionality in your ERP or accounting system, poor data quality, difficulties linked to the time constraints or even the unavailability of your IT experts.

What if there was an option that would simplify this whole process by using the power of automation?

KPMG Luxembourg has combined its VAT and technology expertise to develop a specific data integration and test automation application, which is fully dedicated to the generation of a FAIA file.

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Check if your FAIA file is compliant

KPMG allows you to check whether your self-generated file complies with the regulation*.

Test it

* Please note that the tests carried out in this free version are not exhaustive. The absence of error does not imply automatic acceptance/validation of the file.

Benefits of KPMG Integrated FAIA Application

How the KPMG Integrated FAIA Application can make a difference

With our FAIA application, our VAT experts can convert your data to generate a FAIA reporting file and validate it against more than 70 tests, striving for a timely and accurate submission to the authorities. Our in-house specialists have extensive experience with FAIA regulations and can test your file or data against FAIA requirements.

KPMG Luxembourg can either generate a compliant FAIA file based on your accounting data or test a self-generated file, relying on the power of automation and enabling you to save precious time and focus on your main activities.

We have recently experienced a surge in requests for FAIA files with authorities expecting compliant files to be provided at request. Making sure that you are FAIA compliant prior to a VAT audit is essential to avoid financial penalties.

Generate your FAIA file

There are two different ways to generate a FAIA file:

Provide your accounting data to be converted in accordance with a specific KPMG template
Export your data “as-is” and let our team design a customized data integration solution for you.

No matter the option you choose, once your connector has been configured, the generation of your FAIA file is effortless and immediate.

KPMG Luxembourg offers you…

To validate a self-generated FAIA file on more than 70 points to maximize your chances of having it accepted by the authorities or generally improve its quality
To mock-up a FAIA audit, thanks to the experience we gathered since the implementation of the FAIA requirements more than a decade ago

The success of these controls which are both structural and logical, maximize the likelihood of acceptance of a file by the authorities.

If your file is generated by KPMG, these controls will automatically be applied prior to delivering the file.

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