Tonya Cicconi, Global Tax Accounting Manager at DuPont, shares how Alteryx and ONESOURCE streamline tax data management and strengthen the tax provision process

Corporate tax departments routinely face changing regulations, complex compliance requirements, and demands for greater transparency – so there’s never an opportune time to take on the added challenge of implementing a tax and accounting automation solution.

This was doubly true when DuPont’s tax team took on the task. On top of their day-to-day operational challenges, the company’s tax professionals were navigating a stalled ERP upgrade and managing significant M&A activity.

The only thing more untenable than adopting tax technology at such a volatile time, says Tonya Cicconi, Global Tax Accounting Manager at DuPont, was the prospect of not upgrading their tools and processes – and failing to execute timely on increased demands.

To avoid falling behind, she explains, the team needed a single source of financial information – including essential legal entity details – in order to see the big picture and also disaggregate the data for a clear view into individual business units. More specifically, the tax department’s top priorities were to better manage the complexities in the tax provision process and to realize the benefits of the company’s long-term ERP upgrade.

They implemented the tax data management solution that combines Thomson Reuters ONESOURCE tax technology solutions and Alteryx’s data extraction, preparation, formatting, and manipulation capabilities to have one source of information. The solution delivered tax provision visibility, accuracy, and efficiency while centralizing and streamlining tax data management and compliance.

“Before, our tax department really had a lack of transparency and data analytics to spot issues as well as the inability to combine data and perform calculations quickly,” Cicconi says. “Think of Alteryx as a replacement for any repetitive processes or calculations that need to be refreshed frequently – where Excel is typically used.”

Cicconi had an additional objective. Recently chosen to be part of DuPont’s Nutrition & Biosciences tax leadership team, she would play a critical role to merge this business into International Flavors and Fragrances (IFF). The combined company valued at $45.4 billion for the megamerger of International Flavors & Fragrances and DuPont Nutrition and Biosciences, officially completed on February 1, 2021 solidifies IFF's place as one of the biggest players in the ingredients space. “My focus will be on separation activities as well as integration with IFF to create a best-in-class tax provision process. “

How do you ask more from your employees during major transactions when you are already asking them to perform at a higher level? Well some good old friendly competition surely would get some attention as Cicconi formed a tax compliance and tax accounting team to compete and present their business cases, along with recruiting judges from outside of tax to declare the winner. “Thomson Reuters’ tax experience and ONESOURCE’s discovery program helped us to onboard Alteryx,” Cicconi explains, “There was no initial license investment,” so the DuPont tax team could use the platform to develop detailed business cases for its presentation to the judges. The presentation covered use cases, DuPont pain points, Alteryx process maps, and expected benefits.

“We then went on to do troubleshooting sessions working with Thomson Reuters experts . . . and then went on to finetuning sessions – again working with the Thomson Reuters team. Finally, Alteryx process workflows were presented to our judges and the global tax leadership team.” This resulted in a win-win for everyone.

With the easy decision made to purchase Alteryx licenses, DuPont’s tax department had the solution it needed to stay ahead of growing demands, ceaseless change, and new challenges. As for Cicconi, she will be moving on to her next project at IFF to execute a speedy integration, which will be critical to realize synergies out of the gate of the megamerger.