Tax Performance Engineering
Client Success Story
The tax function at a multinational
Fortune 500 organization had insufficient processes and technology to accurately
complete the company’s quarterly SEC filings.
Company Background
Company Issue
Technology Issues
All tax provision calculations were performed within Excel. Excel is not an effective tool to mitigate the risks of calculation error, data entry error and version control.
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A review of the company’s entire tax provision process identified many issues. Left unchecked, the company was exposed to substantial audit risk.
Data Issues
The company used multiple systems to capture general ledger data for its 100+ entities worldwide. The data had to be manually converted to a common format and reconciled before it could be used for the provision process.
The company’s Financial Planning & Analysis team produced forecasted results on a global consolidated basis - not the legal entity basis required for tax.
2 of 4
Process Issues
Transfer pricing adjustments by jurisdiction were key to provision accuracy, but lack of automation in the transfer pricing analysis put significant stress on the provision process timeline.
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Workforce Issues
A high level of recent turnover left
a team with little historical knowledge of the company.
The domestic and international tax processes were incompatible, making the global consolidation process difficult.
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Company Benefits
The tax department was fully engaged during the software implementation and workpaper template development. After a successful go live, the company took full ownership of the redesigned process and the software administration.
Implementation of selected tax software solutions occurred over the span of only 6 months. The tax department reduced close time from 10 to 8 days in year one, with greater accuracy and more time for review and analytics.
Custom reporting gave the VP of Tax and CFO greater transparency to the effective tax rate than ever before.
The company was able to adopt an electronic workpaper methodology in advance of the pandemic, which suddenly shifted the workforce to remote.
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