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Whether your business is using Oracle, SAP, Workday or any other ERPEnterprise resource planning (ERP) is a type of software that organisations use to manage main business processes., our first recommendation is always to consider whether its native functionality can be configured to automate tax determination, application and remittance.
In many cases, it can. Such is the power, capacity and flexibility of a modern ERP, all the features required to efficiently and accurately manage tax are often waiting to be unlocked.
But there are plenty of alternative scenarios in which only the implementation of a third-party tax engine will suffice. For example, in the US, due to the complexities of Sales & Use Tax and the countless variables within every company, industry and type of sale, there are inevitably more occasions that require you to invest in third-party technology.
At Innovate Tax, we’re used to delivering implementations of all the leading tax engines on the market – including Vertex O-Series, CFA and TDT, Thomson Reuters OneSource and Avalara’s AvaTax.
That means we’re well placed to advise on what a successful project should look like; our knowledge of global architecture driving our vision of the steps that must be taken to ensure software is fully optimised, its performance is maximised and the tax maintenance burden is limited.
I’ve shared six steps below that we follow during every Innovate project – and we only move on to the next when we’re completely satisfied with the results of the current stage.
Our methodology is built on experience and expertise; achieving standardisation across all regions and industries. That’s how we’ve managed to deliver world-class automated tax solutions for more than 100 global clients. So if your business is preparing for a tax engine implementation and you select Innovate, this is how we’d tackle your project:
Our project methodology
1) Requirements gathering
At this stage, we’ll provide data gathering templates for you to complete and conduct discovery workshops to review indirect tax, technical and functional requirements to assist in the design of your tax solution. As the client, it will be your responsibility to provide the data we require for the solution design.
2) Requirements analysis
Based upon the requirements collected during the project kick-off and the discovery workshop sessions, our consultants use this stage to analyse and document your business and specific tax requirements for the tax integration.
3) Design
At this stage, the configuration of your third-party tax engine will be designed, including the data that will flow from the ERP. The Design phase will include the preparation of data mapping, configurations, a unit test plan and specific test scenarios that your business can use as part of its UAT testing of the integration and configuration throughout each testing cycle. We always endeavour to use the standard functionality of both your ERP and tax engine, helping us to avoid customisations. We also use the Design stage to create a Business Requirements / High Level Design document (BRD/HLD) that we will share with you and, where practicable, mutually agree ahead of the Build phase.
4) Build/unit testing
The Build stage will encompass configuration and modification of your new tax engine to meet the needs defined during the Requirements Gathering and Design stages of the project, as well as the unit testing of these modifications and mappings inside the tax engine.
5) Testing
At this stage, we’ll work with you to understand your test plan, testing and related activities during all test cycles. Our Unit Test document can be shared with you and your team (based on the BRD/HLD) and is based upon the information you provided during the Requirements Gathering stage. You are welcome to use (and add to where appropriate) this document during testing. The Testing phase also provides us with an opportunity to work to resolve any identified issues, apply identified changes in the tax engine and support your in-house testing to confirm successful results for each use case.
6) Cutover activities
We’ll document the configuration of the tax engine and deliver the knowledge transfer and training sessions that come as part of your project. Our team will also work with you on the coordination of cutover activities. Finally, the migration of all tax engine configurations to the production instance following standard procedures will be performed.
Why work with us?
We know from the experience of designing our own project methodology based on 12 years’ experience working with some of the world’s biggest brands that these six milestones (plus one or two others) are non-negotiable.
That’s why we work with every client prior to their implementation to offer advice and recommendations on issues such as data flow between their ERP and tax engine, the design of their tax solution and best practice across a multitude of processes.
Essentially, we can design, build and configure a tax solution using our unique methodology that has a proven record of success over more than 100 global implementations. We simply adapt it to meet your tax engine and ERP combination, as well as any specific requirements.
