The quality of your RFP determines the quality of the proposals you receive.
When financial institutions begin evaluating digital asset tax reporting solutions, one assumption often shapes the procurement process: if enough vendors respond to an RFP, the best solution will naturally rise to the top.
Unfortunately, that's rarely how it works.
The reality is that vendors can only respond to the information they're given. If an RFP lacks detail, suppliers are forced to make assumptions about products, transaction volumes, implementation timelines, customer populations, and operational requirements. Those assumptions can lead to inaccurate pricing, incomplete proposals, and costly surprises during implementation.
The most successful RFPs don't simply ask vendors what they can do—they provide vendors with the information they need to demonstrate how they will support the institution's specific business model.
During Ledgible's webinar, Building a 1099 Operating Model for Success, experts from Ledgible, Sovos, and Comply Exchange outlined several areas that organizations should define before asking vendors to submit proposals. While every institution's requirements are unique, the following questions can dramatically improve the quality of vendor responses.
1. What Products Are Actually in Scope?
One of the first—and most overlooked—questions institutions should answer has nothing to do with software.
It's about the business itself.
Many organizations operate multiple digital asset products, subsidiaries, or lines of business. Those products often have different reporting obligations and different operational owners.
For example:
- Retail trading platforms
- Institutional custody
- OTC trading desks
- Staking services
- NFT marketplaces
- Tokenized securities
- Traditional brokerage products
Not every product requires the same tax reporting capabilities.
The webinar emphasizes the importance of conducting a product analysis before drafting an RFP so vendors understand exactly which products, entities, and payment types they are expected to support. That analysis helps define both the scope of the implementation and the functionality required.
2. What Does Success Look Like?
Every institution has different priorities.
Some organizations prioritize automation.
Others focus on customer experience.
Others may emphasize scalability, implementation speed, regulatory expertise, or cost.
Without clearly defining evaluation criteria, procurement teams often find themselves comparing vendors using inconsistent standards.
The webinar recommends identifying key stakeholders early and agreeing on how proposals will ultimately be scored.
Questions worth discussing internally include:
- Which capabilities are essential?
- Which features are simply desirable?
- How should functionality be weighted against price?
- What implementation risks are acceptable?
- Which operational challenges are we trying to eliminate?
These conversations should happen before vendors submit proposals—not after demonstrations begin.
3. What Information Do Vendors Need to Price the Project Accurately?
Pricing is only meaningful when vendors understand the environment they're supporting.
That's why one of the most valuable sections of an RFP is often the one institutions spend the least time developing: project parameters.
Organizations should consider including information such as:
- Approximate U.S. and non-U.S. customer counts
- Average monthly transaction volumes
- Number of transaction source systems
- Frequency of TIN matching
- IRS forms currently supported
- Historical filing volumes
- Data transmission frequency
- Required decimal precision for digital assets
These details help suppliers accurately estimate implementation effort, infrastructure requirements, and recurring operational costs.
As discussed during the webinar, digital asset reporting can involve billions of transactions over the course of a year. Without understanding those volumes, vendors cannot realistically estimate the resources required to support the institution.
4. Is the Timeline Realistic?
Regulatory deadlines often create pressure to move quickly.
But unrealistic implementation schedules rarely benefit either institutions or vendors.
The webinar recommends working backward from the desired implementation date and accounting for each phase of the procurement process, including:
- RFP release
- Vendor questions
- Proposal reviews
- Product demonstrations
- Contract negotiations
- Implementation planning
- Data mapping
- Testing
- User acceptance
- Production deployment
Institutions should also leave room for internal reviews, legal approvals, and data integration work—all of which frequently take longer than expected.
Rather than asking vendors to promise unrealistic delivery dates, organizations should focus on understanding whether proposed timelines are achievable given the complexity of their environment.
5. How Will We Compare Vendor Pricing?
One of the more practical recommendations from the webinar centers on pricing terminology.
Digital asset businesses don't always define terms the same way.
For one supplier, a "transaction" might include every blockchain event.
For another, only reportable sales.
For another, only customer-facing activity.
Without standardized definitions, comparing pricing across proposals becomes nearly impossible.
Institutions should clearly define how they measure:
- Customers
- Accounts
- Transactions
- Forms
- Sale events
- Income events
- Annual reporting volumes
Doing so creates a level playing field for every supplier and reduces misunderstandings during contract negotiations.
6. What Happens After Implementation?
Many RFPs focus heavily on implementation while giving relatively little attention to ongoing operations.
However, digital asset tax reporting is an annual compliance process—not a one-time software deployment.
Organizations should evaluate questions such as:
- How are regulatory updates delivered?
- What managed services are available?
- How are corrections handled?
- How is reconciliation performed?
- What reporting tools are included?
- How are support requests managed during tax season?
- What security certifications does the provider maintain?
The webinar highlights that institutions remain responsible for their tax reporting obligations, even when software providers perform many operational tasks. Selecting a vendor therefore requires evaluating not only technology, but also the processes and services that support long-term compliance.
Better Questions Lead to Better Outcomes
An effective RFP isn't about asking more questions—it's about asking better ones.
The strongest vendor evaluations begin with a clear understanding of the institution's products, operational requirements, implementation goals, and success metrics. When that foundation is in place, suppliers can provide proposals that are more accurate, more comparable, and ultimately more useful.
As digital asset reporting requirements continue to evolve, institutions that invest time upfront in defining their needs will be better positioned to select technology partners capable of supporting compliance well beyond the first Form 1099-DA filing season.
Watch the Full Webinar
Choosing a digital asset tax reporting provider is one of the most important operational decisions many institutions will make as Form 1099-DA requirements take effect.
In the on-demand webinar, experts from Ledgible, Sovos, and Comply Exchange walk through a complete RFP template, explain how to evaluate supplier responses, and share practical recommendations for building a successful digital asset reporting operating model.
Watch the on-demand webinar: https://ledgible.io/on-demand-webinar-building-a-1099-operating-model-for-success
Whether you're drafting your first RFP or refining an existing procurement process, asking the right questions before engaging vendors can save significant time, reduce implementation risk, and lead to stronger long-term outcomes.
