The Pain
Every year, our client – a multinational automotive supplier headquartered in Michigan – went through an arduous tax reporting process that involved multiple ERP systems, data sources and business units. It usually took an entire team ten months to complete.
That meant:
A high-cost process
Risk of late filing fees
Low job satisfaction in the tax team
High potential for human error
Significant financial risk
How We Did It
POC. We ran an initial PoC connecting SAP data to Alteryx and removing the need for manual processes
Tool selection. We worked with the client to identify the tools that would work best with their existing tech and company culture
Aggregating data in Snowflake. We directly connected the source systems, and structured the data so it could be used for reporting
Standardising the data. We translated the underlying business logic into a standardised format that data engineers could work with
Beating the deadline. The entire project took about 3 months from start to finish – and was completed in time to beat the tax filing deadline and avoid any late fees
The Outcome
The process is down from ten months to one day
Reporting is automated across multiple platforms and ERP systems
Accuracy is greatly improved
Documentation happens automatically
No more late filing fees
Team morale is boosted: eliminating the people-heavy, highly manual, error-prone process (and spreadsheets) has freed the tax team to spend their time analysing reports – not creating them
Huge potential for tax optimisation in the future - the team can now mine the data for insights in Power BI
Rigorous documentation of the business logic has laid groundwork for future innovation and automation initiatives
From ten months down to a day. This is unheard of in tax circles.
John Craig, VP of Tax
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