Modern business is complex and continually moving. Large organisations offer many different products and services, in multiple markets, currencies and jurisdictions, that are all constantly changing. Tax functions need to adjust quickly - as does the configuration of the tax software that supports them.
A well-configured tax platform streamlines the supply chain of your tax data - capturing data from the source, flowing it into your tax accounting and compliance processes, simplifying reporting, and automating routine tasks. This frees the tax team from unnecessary complexity to focus on business insights and other more high-value work.
What are the key elements of configuration?
Corporate tax software must be configured to meet the needs of the organisation - its unique tax workflow processes, entities, activities, financial accounts, and tax sensitivity.
A well-designed tax technology system takes into account:
- Organisational structure: adapts to the entities, systems, and processes unique to the organisation and its users, and the tax jurisdictions in which it operates.
- Financial structure: reproduces the financial accounts of the organisation and overlays the required tax treatment of each account (be it revenue, expense, asset, liability, other comprehensive income, or equity).
- Integration: connects with source systems such as the organisation’s ERP system, ensuring information seamlessly flows to the tax reporting and compliance systems without human intervention or data manipulation.
- Data onboarding: allows users to automatically map data to workpapers, schedules, and disclosures, with minimal manual adjustment and reconciliation.
- Reports: immediately makes accurate tax data available for a range of standard and user designed reports.
Where can configuration go wrong?
Poor configuration is hard to overcome, especially if systems are inflexible, making them costly and time-consuming to change later. Major issues with configuration can usually be traced back to issues with poor design and vendor support:
The source systems and the tax platform are disconnected
If source systems, such as ERPs, and the tax platform don’t connect, processes, such as trial balance mapping and data upload, will require manual intervention. Configuration then becomes a multi-step, labor-intensive process - downloading data from the ERP, manually configuring the data within spreadsheets, and then uploading the data into the tax platform - risking errors, wasting business resources, and often necessitating the expense of hiring additional services.
Inflexibility due to ‘back-end’ customisation
Organisations need to quickly reconfigure their tax software when change happens. Whilst it’s important that the tax platform matches your business needs, too much bespoke development can lead to inflexibility. If key elements, like workpapers and schedules, require backend development to reconfigure, you risk time delays, additional expense, and version control errors.
Limited access to ‘on-the-ground’ expertise
The vendor’s consultants must apply the functionality of their tax technology to the unique needs of your business. Consultants must understand the tax accounting practices and tax regulations in your local jurisdiction. Building a strong working relationship at the very start of the design process between your business and your consultants is crucial. A breakdown in understanding, perhaps due to a lack of resources or local expertise, can result in mistakes and delays, leading to a poor outcome. Being forced to then throw resources at a struggling implementation to try to catch up is inefficient and costly.
CCH Integrator is a code-free configuration platform
Wolters Kluwer can very efficiently configure a solution to adapt to an enterprise’s unique business structures, systems, and processes without any ‘back-end’ code changes or expensive customisations. Our no code configuration means that the majority of the work takes place at the front-end between your staff and our consultants. Your accounts and schedules can be stood up much faster, with fewer errors. CCH Integrator offers:
- Easy integration with most ERP software and can be adapted to tax environments from many different parts of the world.
- Alignment with your organisation’s operating and organisational hierarchy, with the ability to perform multiple consolidations at both local and group level (including currency conversion) in a multi–language-enabled interface.
- Streamlined front-end user configuration, allowing the software to adjust to regulatory changes and country-specific differences, or configure automatic updates without requiring any back-end coding.
- Implementation through close collaboration with dedicated tax and technology consultants to ensure a smooth process.
- A complete tax data solution – a central ‘hub’ for all reporting - providing auditability, transparency, and integrity of your tax data.
‘When Wolters Kluwer talks about configuration it’s not about backend developers coding – it’s tax professional to tax professional.’
Marnela Cabraal, Head of Consulting, Enterprise Software, Tax and Accounting, Asia Pacific
Start your journey with CCH Integrator
CCH Integrator is a specialist tax platform that provides corporates and professional services firms a single look and feel to manage multiple tax regimes, reporting requirements, languages, and currencies from anywhere in the world.
To help start your tax technology transformation Wolters Kluwer have developed a Corporate Tax Technology Buying Guide. It will step you through all you need know.
Inside our complimentary guide you will discover how to:
- Recognise the signs that you’ve outgrown your existing tax processes or software.
- Determine the level of functionality required.
- Select a tax solution that best meets your business objectives.
- Successfully implement your new tax platform.
