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Where a tax number comes from · presentation 3 of 5 · for the whole-system operator — you run the books Read the transcript · Back to the series

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Where a tax number comes from · presentation 3 of 5

Invalid is three different things

You can tell the three causes of a tax number reported as invalid apart — the board disagreeing, the board never answering…

What invalid can mean

Step 1 — Learn that one word covers three situations

You will stop treating invalid as a fact about your data.

What this step names
  1. Three causes
  2. Three different remedies
  3. One word on the screen

Step 2 — The board looked and disagreed

You will know what a genuine disagreement looks like.

Submitted

Submitted anyway

Step 3 — The board never answered

You will stop mass-mailing your customers over an outage.

What this step names
  1. Any response that is not a success is recorded as not valid…
  2. A refusal
  3. A timeout
  4. Above all an expired access token

Step 4 — The question was never askable

The blanks on your records will stop surprising you.

Where this step sits
    flowchart TD
  s1["1. Learn that one word covers three…"]
  s2["2. The board looked and disagreed"]
  s3["3. The board never answered"]
  s4["4. The question was never askable"]
  s5["5. Run the two-minute check before you…"]
  s6["6. Plan a campaign around the fact…"]
  s1 --> s2
  s2 --> s3
  s3 --> s4
  s4 --> s5
  s5 --> s6
  classDef here fill:#1e40af,stroke:#1e40af,color:#ffffff,font-weight:bold;
  class s4 here;

Telling them apart

Step 5 — Run the two-minute check before you touch anything

You will never act on the wrong cause.

What you do
  1. Pick one customer you are confident about — a large corporate account whose number…
  2. Wait, verify again, and only then re-run whatever you were about to run

Step 6 — Plan a campaign around the fact that nothing reports back

Your campaigns will be repeatable.

What you do
  1. Verify one known-good record to prove the channel
  2. Run it

NarrationSlide 1 of 9

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