Vatstack Validations — Automate VAT ID number validations during checkout.

Excited to release this to the world. In summary, Vatstack Validations is addressing a number of shortcomings with other VAT ID number validation proxies out there and I think that this avoids a lot of headaches. 1. Consultation numbers are obtained on behalf of you which serve as an official piece of evidence during audit: Every request comes with a consultation number given by VIES (VAT Information Exchange System of the EU). The consultation number of a request is a unique reference number and acts as official piece of evidence used to show to tax administrations of an EU member state that you have rightfully validated a given VAT ID number on a given date. 2. Records of past VAT ID number validations are saved for future retrieval (caching): Record-keeping can be especially useful for tax-filing purposes and if you are faced with an audit. It can also be a handy fallback for repeated charges with the same customers in the event that government services are temporarily unavailable. 3. Accept validation requests gracefully for asynchronous processing (for example during downtime periods): Government service downtimes happen regularly but will be a less blocking issue from now on. Validation requests are accepted and enter a schedule for automated re-validation. 4. Send webhook events on succeeded VAT ID number validation requests for further evaluation: Vatstack Validations will proactively notify your server as soon as a validation request was successfully processed and a result obtained from VIES. This means that you don’t have to query our API anymore and can instead listen to webhook events.