The must-practice data management strategies to drive accurate, on-time and audit proof results.
In today’s fast-moving global business landscape, the complexities faced by corporate tax and trade departments continue to multiply. With supply chains continually threatened by international conflicts, the almost constant disruption hinders global-trade efforts. This hampers regulatory cooperation and exacerbates internal conflicts and challenges for many businesses.
For trade professionals, adapting to this fractured and frustrating world has meant becoming experts at developing contingency plans and workarounds to keep supply chains running smoothly. For tax teams in equally unpredictable markets, keeping up with the latest deadlines, regulatory changes, and new compliance processes remains a constant challenge.
Getting it wrong is costly. Tax errors, audits, fines and penalties can all result in a loss of revenue, but even more importantly, a loss of reputation and customer confidence for businesses. Accurate data management from trustworthy sources is a critical component of any corporate tax compliance process.
The tax data challenge
Managing tax data in today’s business environment can be challenging. The rapid increase in accessible data across a series of disparate and unconnected systems makes keeping track of information and details exponentially harder. With many organizations still reliant on manual processes, gaps and compliance errors are often inevitable.
There’s no part of business untouched by tax and trade implications. Yet, these are often the areas of business least likely to be ahead of the curve, especially when it comes to optimization and technology.
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While C-suite professionals are often the ones responsible for seeing (and approving) the broader strategic approach to tax, trade, and technology in any business, they often also lack clarity and visibility across these areas, meaning their decisions are less well-informed.
A more unified approach to tax and trade can help manage these risks and ensure compliance, helping organizations achieve their strategic goals across every stage of the business lifecycle.
As experts in technology and with years of experience supporting and advising tax and trade professionals around the world, we’ve identified three essential tax data management strategies, that every business should aspire to:
1: Integrating tax data from a single source of truth
- Our research has highlighted how businesses can benefit from connected technology solutions with a single, trusted vendor.2 Technology solutions with additional generative AI capabilities can seamlessly integrate data from disparate processes (ERP, customs systems, etc.) to create a single source of truth, reducing risk by incorporating changing tax regulations and calculations across a variety of jurisdiction requirements.
- In addition, tax technology that automates routine tasks and manual reporting can help streamline processes, reducing errors, and freeing up time and resources for wider strategic collaboration.
- A single vendor tax and trade solution like Thomson Reuters ONESOURCE™, can not only improve data consistency, workflow efficiency, and overall collaboration, but can also provide insights into tax and trade performance, which can be used to identify opportunities for improvement and help businesses make more strategic, data-driven decisions.
2: Implementing a tax data hub to eliminate errors
- Consolidating tax data from various sources and overcoming the complexities of tax data management can be made easier with the implementation of a data hub – a centralized data warehouse designed specifically for tax information. Having a single, secure source of data, designed specifically to house tax information and integrate with reporting software was widely recognized as a benefit by tax professionals.
- Processes that allow streamlining of audit requests and access to historical data without concerns about mismatches or overwriting can help eliminate errors. Standardized and efficient data import processes, like transferring or sharing data with outsourced service providers via the hub infrastructure, multi-year tax attribute support, and cloud-based hosting to provide unlimited storage can provide efficiencies and cost savings.
- A trusted source of up-to-date information can help transform raw data into actionable tax insights, and help businesses prepare for audit readiness.
3: Automating manual tax processes to increase efficiency and accuracy
- Bespoke APIs and connectors can help automate tedious data transfers, speeding up tax compliance reporting, also helping reduce manual errors and improve data quality within the organization.
- Automation can streamline tax processes and free up resources by accelerating monthly close and reducing manual tasks.
- Clearer data flow can simplify data requests and reduce repetitive processes, as well as improving inter-departmental collaboration.
Achieving tax data excellence
Successfully managing constantly changing tax data across multiple geographies, regulatory jurisdictions and business functions needs careful planning, communication, and collaboration. Actionable steps for implementing clear data management strategies should include:
- Establishing clear ownership, responsibilities, and data quality standards
- Implementing data validation and cleansing processes to ensure accuracy
- Selecting and implementing appropriate data management tools and platforms
- Communicating the benefits of data management to the rest of the business
- Providing appropriate training to employees
- Consistently monitoring data quality and performance metrics
- Regularly identifying areas for improvement and making necessary adjustments.
What can you do for your business to both grow and manage corporate tax compliance?
When we asked tax professionals about technology growth within their businesses, most (78%) expected to see an increase in their technology capabilities.
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Robust tax data management is crucial in helping organizations navigate current compliance complexities. Having a single, secure data source can make keeping track of it much easier and less costly. Improved technology to help improve data flow between departments, systems and geographies is also vital. Finally, automating time-consuming manual tasks can help not only speed up the process but also prevent tax errors and mitigate compliance risk.
Time to take action and join the thousands of tax professionals who trust Thomson Reuters tax solutions to help them navigate into the future.
For more information on how Thomson Reuters can help inform the way forward for your tax data needs visit https://tax.thomsonreuters.com/en/onesource.
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