Your Guide to SAF-T Compliance: Why it Matters for Expense Reporting

What is SAF-T?

SAF-T, or Standard Audit File for Tax, is an internationally recognised standard developed by the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development). It enables the electronic exchange of accounting data between organisations and national tax authorities or external auditors.

Originally published in 2005, the SAF-T standard was created to make tax audits more efficient, reduce errors, and lower the cost of compliance.

Each country has the flexibility to implement SAF-T according to its own regulatory requirements, meaning businesses must adapt their systems accordingly to maintain compliance. The structure is commonly based on XML, allowing for easy automation.

Why SAF-T matters for expense reporting?

Organisations operating across multiple jurisdictions need a flexible yet robust compliance management system, especially for areas like travel and expense (T&E).

SAF-T ensures that data related to business travel expenses, such as receipts, vendor information, and transaction details, is standardised and auditable.

By embedding SAF-T requirements into your expense management process, you can:

• Ensure compliance with local tax regulations
• Reduce compliance issues through automation
• Improve internal audit readiness with structured, accessible data
• Support your regulatory compliance strategy at both local and global levels
• Save time and reduce manual work across your finance and compliance teams

For instance, SAF-T reporting allows tax authorities to identify anomalies or fraudulent claims quickly, making proactive compliance not only smart but essential.

How Mobilexpense supports your SAF-T compliance function?

At Mobilexpense, we’ve built tools that help you meet SAF-T obligations with confidence and ease.

Capture the right data automatically

We help organisations easily capture important data, like vendor and invoice information, when expenses are entered. This is key for a good compliance strategy. It helps avoid missing or incorrect records that could cause problems during an audit.

You can gather vendor data using three flexible methods:

• Manual input: Users enter vendor details directly
• Approved vendor list (AVL): Users select from a maintained internal list
• Online databases: Where supported (e.g. Poland), vendor info is pulled from local databases

Controllers can easily validate this information as part of the approval process, strengthening your compliance function further.

Generate compliant reports in real time

Thanks to seamless ERP integration, all expense data collected through Mobilexpense is automatically fed into your financial systems.

We generate XML-formatted reports aligned with each country’s SAF-T schema. It ensures your submissions are structured, complete, and ready for review by auditors or tax authorities.

This real-time reporting capability also enhances your ability to monitor compliance risks and resolve them quickly.

Future-proof your regulatory compliance strategy

SAF-T adoption is only one step in the broader movement towards standardised, digital tax reporting across Europe.

As compliance expectations grow, having an agile, centralised solution becomes a strategic advantage.

Mobilexpense supports tax and financial services compliance in over 70 countries. Also, makes it easier to consolidate operations, manage multi-market regulations, and maintain visibility, all without sacrificing control.

By integrating SAF-T into your operations today, you’re not only meeting today’s requirements, you’re setting up a resilient, forward-looking compliance process.