The story behind successful ERP-tax implementations

Astute tax leaders are leaning into “data-driven storytelling” to build convincing narratives on the need for advanced tax automation solutions – including those that generate forward-looking indirect tax compliance storylines via powerful tax data analytics.

Doing so can be difficult, however, given the fact that tax organizations often find their needs overshadowed by other business priorities. Many indirect tax teams also contend with a set of persistent people, process and technology pain points. Tax leaders and managers who attended a Deloitte-Vertex webinar on the potential advantages of integrating a tax automation engine with Workday Financials identified the following challenges as their most pressing issue:  

• Incorrect or incomplete source data for tax calculations: (selected by 34.2% of attendees)
• Difficulties with audits: 19.2%
• Challenges with tax talent: 13%
• Insufficient organizational budget: 11.6%
• Inefficiencies and inaccuracies with filing returns: 7.5%

The good news is that nearly all of those pain points can be alleviated via tax automation and the process improvements that typically accompany implementations of new ERP systems and tax engines. More good news: survey respondents do not appear be grappling with budgeting shortfalls at the moment.  

Optimizing a new investment in a tax automation solution starts with a successful implementation. We’ve worked with many finance, accounting, tax and IT groups that have integrated the Vertex tax engine with Workday Financials. Based on these experiences, we’ve learned that implementation success is driven by most, if not of the following actions and approaches:  

• A fit/gap analysis
• A detailed understanding of where the necessary data currently resides
• A detailed understanding of new requirements
• A “start small” mindset that favors swift deployment
• Cross-functional collaborations with key stakeholders
• Expertise in leveraging the full potential of the software’s capabilities
• The prioritization of tax-critical processes
• A third party implementation partner, bridging the tax and technology expertise gap

When prioritizing and performing these practices, tax “protagonists” – and the rest of the implementation team – tend to prevail while overcoming the unexpected plot twists that inevitably arise. For additional insights on building a data-driven approach to indirect tax automation, explore our white paper on data-driven indirect tax strategies.