In our global, fast-moving tax environment, the tax professional faces the pressure of calculating an accurate tax provision for management, regulators and all your other stakeholders, on demand and often across multiple jurisdictions with different tax regulations and GAAPs.
The process of calculating a corporate income tax provision is complicated, the results (or mistakes) of which can have enormous implications for your business. The tax provision offers vital information on the company’s future tax obligations and can form material balances on the Balance Sheet making it increasingly important in mergers and acquisitions, fund raising, and other business transactions. Furthermore, in recent years we have seen tax expense conflated with the amount of tax a business is paying, leading to unwanted media attention. These factors have led to tax being the subject of increased scrutiny from Boards, auditors, analysts and regulators.
Whether your business tends to struggle with tax provision calculations, requires completion by non-tax finance teams in your subsidiaries, or you’re facing growing tax complexity that demands a more robust and intuitive solution for reporting and planning, dedicated tax software can give you the tools you need to plan accordingly.
Why is tax provision software a smart investment for your business?
When you need to calculate your tax provision, speed, accuracy, and efficiency are crucial. Automated tax provisioning software speeds up the process of reporting your company’s current and deferred income taxes. This makes the tax provision process more efficient, speeding up your tax supply chain, and freeing up the tax team to perform more value-added work.
An efficient tax platform does this through integrations that pull data directly from your Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software that flow directly into your tax software and update as late changes are made by finance and audit. Using a tax platform enables the incorporation of automation to adjustments creating a materially correct tax position as soon as the trial balance is loaded. This reduces the risk of human error through manual intervention and allows for near real-time tax positions for your business.
An effective tax provision solution, like Wolters Kluwer’s CCH Integrator, built by tax professionals for tax professionals, allows you to view a forecast of year-end obligations at any time. It makes it easy to see where your business is likely to end up at financial close and your estimated cash tax obligations, freeing up your time to focus on more value added activities to move the tax function from being a cost centre to a strategic business partner.
The right tool for provisioning is crucial
In contrast, those using spreadsheet-based processes to calculate their tax provision may be challenged by being disconnected from source data, which may necessitate detailed reviews and reconciliations, and lead to potential versioning issues. All of which can cause significant pain. Spreadsheets are widely understood and accessible and will continue to play a role in tax reporting. However, spreadsheets can be an obstacle to operational efficiency and transparency, especially as the business grows and the collection of spreadsheets makes it hard to control and collaborate across entities, advisors and jurisdictions.
Likewise, even dedicated tax compliance software may not be effective if the tax provisioning solution is not strong. This can happen if the tax reporting module is not purpose built and is instead some form of add-on functionality to the compliance platform. This may not meet the governance and control needs of businesses (for example, if it takes a non-tax basis-balance sheet and exception-based approach) or, if the compliance process does not leverage the work from the provision process, deliver the efficiency the tax function requires.
CCH Integrator: built from the ‘ground up’ to manage tax reporting requirements
CCH Integrator is an automated, integrated solution to manage your global tax requirements, taking the weight of delivering the complex information required for tax reporting and provisioning off your shoulders.
CCH Integrator provides a single platform for data collection, analysis, and tax reporting from your entities, subsidiaries and countries, all while maintaining full control over the quality and integrity of your information. Scalable for both small and large corporations, CCH Integrator offers multi-jurisdictional functionality that delivers multi-GAAP, multi-currency and multi-language functionality and is completely configurable by the end user to meet your organisation’s unique needs.
CCH Integrator’s tax provisioning solution features:
Tax Automation
Much of your tax burden can be automated reducing the risks of ageing spreadsheets and manual input so you can make the right tax decisions and accurately report to your stakeholders.
Real-time reporting of taxes
An accurate global tax provision is always available in multiple formats to deliver to all your stakeholders.
Integration with any ERP systems
CCH Integrator performs all your tax preparation, filing and reporting, while sending and receiving data from your chosen ERP system.
Flexibility on a global scale
Our platform adapts easily to your changing needs – regardless of location, process, people or data format.
How to identify the tax technology platform that’s right for your organisation
To help you with this decision, we’ve come up with five key questions to ask about tax technology before investing in a new solution. Once equipped with this knowledge, you and your team can get ready to take advantage of a solution that promises efficiency, increased auditability, and allows for greater collaboration and control.
In this guide, you will learn the importance of a tax software solution that:
- Fully integrates the tax provision and tax return.
- Produces a full tax balance sheet.
- Automatically produces your tax provision.
- Configures easily to meet your organisation’s changing needs.
- Provides timely, effective customer support after implementation.
