How a growing company uses ONESOURCE to manage a tax function in constant flux

Jonathan Bentley is senior tax manager at Westrock, a paper and packaging company with offices around the world. A long-time ONESOURCE customer, Bentley uses almost the entire ONESOURCE suite to manage Westrock’s complex and sprawling tax operations, and plans to incorporate even more of the ONESOURCE features and capabilities into his department’s future development.

Though he has access to the entire ONESOURCE platform, DataFlow and Workpapers are Bentley’s favorite everyday modules because they give him complete control over Westrock’s tax data. DataFlow and Workpapers also make it possible to work within an Excel framework and still leverage the power and efficiency of a dedicated ONESOURCE platform, Bentley says, giving him multiple options for organizing and analyzing the company’s tax data. 

“ONESOURCE is pretty sweet, because it gives me everything I need on one platform,” Bentley says. “All the products talk to each other, so I can pull data from anywhere. I also use Checkpoint for research, so I don’t have to log into another research tool—it’s all right there.”

Adapting to change

In the past few years Westrock has spent more than $7 billion on acquisitions, so one of Bentley’s biggest challenges is maintaining consistent workflows and procedures in an atmosphere of constant change. ONESOURCE technology has been essential during this period, Bentley says, because it gives him a centralized yet flexible hub around and through which everything can flow.

“The fact that all the ONESOURCE applications work together means we can be much more efficient,” Bentley says. “Knowing that the reporting data is very clean also helps, especially if there’s an audit. And the ability to automate certain processes also saves time and drives value.”

Bentley estimates that the ONESOURCE platform has saved Westrock approximately two months in tax-processing time, which has produced significant cost savings and gives tax managers more time to engage in other valuable business activities such as scenario modeling, trend analysis, and data analytics. 

Technological confidence

Meeting day-to-day business obligations while also preparing for the future is a challenge every company must undertake, but the ONESOURCE platform makes it possible—even easy—to do both at the same time, Bentley says. 

“ONESOURCE is an important strategic asset for us because it’s got all of these beautiful tools already in place,” Bentley explains, making it unnecessary to look outside the platform for other solutions. ONESOURCE’s expansive and infinitely scalable architecture also makes Bentley and his team feel confident that they are technologically prepared for the challenges that are certain to come with Westrock’s growth trajectory.  

“My tech director and I both see ONESOURCE as professional technology we’re going to need to drive future value,” Bentley says, “because if you don’t build technology into your processes now, you’re going to be behind in no time.”