Embrace intelligent tax transformation, or you may be at risk of being left behind

Creating an intelligent tax function can empower your team to go beyond compliance, and play a bigger role at the decision-making table.

Today’s working world demands an intelligent tax function—one grounded in better data, supported by future-focused skillsets and powered by automation. Why? Shrinking resources, growing operational costs, changing expectations from tax function and ever-increasing regulator demands are making it harder for tax teams to maintain the status quo.

Creating an intelligent tax function now can empower your team to go beyond compliance, and play a higher value role at the decision-making table. Now’s the time to adopt new ways of obtaining, processing and using tax data, bolstered by a different mix of talent, training and technology. Failing to take that leap could put your business—and your bottom line—at risk.

Let’s get specific. How does an intelligent tax function help?

By integrating new and emerging technologies (like artificial intelligence or machine learning) and better use of existing investments into technologies into real tax processes, businesses can reliably, quickly and continuously collect, analyze and extract higher quality data. That kind of automation cuts down on manual work—and the errors that come with it—while fostering a new operating model within. Shifting in this direction empowers your organization with deeper insight to fuel broader strategic conversations, decisions about the business itself more quickly than before and at the same time increase confidence over tax data.

More broadly, an intelligent tax function gives you much needed time for your professionals to focus on high value activities. Combining stronger data quality, automation, new skill sets and realigned responsibilities supports people in cultivating a richer career experience, and stronger integration with the rest of the business.

Taken together, this kind of transformation holds huge potential for any organization looking to make more of its data, and pull leaders out of the weeds to focus on driving profitable growth.

How can you transform to become an intelligent tax function?

There are many ways to automate your tax function behind the scenes. Whether you are considering tax compliance automation, tax data analytics, exception reporting, data transformation or dashboarding results: using the right digital tax solutions will provide a seamless transformation of your tax function. Where should you begin?

1. Stand back to get a clear view of your overarching goals, and tax reporting requirements. You can’t make a plan of attack without a solid understanding of the tax gaps you’d like to close, and the benefits you hope to unlock. This reflective process is an important step in unleashing the full potential of the intelligent tax function. Set objectives for the transformation, align with organizational objectives, identify your greatest tax pain points, and outline any loopholes that must be closed.

2. Articulate your vision and get strategic about execution. Tax teams tend to be traditionalists. Many remain bogged down in legacy software programs and processes incapable of delivering in today’s complex business reality. The vision you create should acknowledge anything that no longer works well. Take that vision one step further by aligning it to your organization’s broader business goals. Use this opportunity to dismantle functional siloes, connect what’s happening in tax to other groups, maxing out your tax transformation potential and prioritize the focus areas.

3. Seek to understand your end-to-end tax data supply chain. Data that’s housed in disconnected systems or trapped in dysfunctional processes doesn’t help your bottom line. It eats into your team’s time, and derails compliance efforts. Identify recurring data problems, or sticky points in the way its recorded and eliminate duplications. Adopt intelligent solutions for these challenges. This can empower tax to handle data better, without creating additional dependencies on IT or any other group.

4. Invest in technology skills. Empowering tax professionals with ownership of new technology and tools can help the entire function operate better. Upskilling your people in key technology areas like database concepts, advance use of existing technologies, desktop data management and analytics tools can be a step in the right direction. Bolster those efforts by recruiting non-traditional tax talent into the group. This creates greater agility within the tax function.

5. Get data right at the source. Connecting your digital tax transformation with any broader business transformation efforts is key. Explore other initiatives at the enterprise level and tap into cross-functional relationships. Establish a seat at the enterprise transformation table and make sure your tax function needs are adequately addressed. Some of the most significant challenges across the tax data life cycle are ERP proliferation, data fragmentation and inadequate use of finance or tax data warehouses. Champion investments here to drive improvements in your overall tax operating model.

6. Dedicate resources to tax transformation to achieve the best results. Good change management requires meaningful ownership, careful measurement, and a collaborative approach. Creating an intelligent tax function within your organization is a major change, and it should be managed accordingly. Align ownership at the start to make sure you get the strongest ROI out of your transformation efforts every step of the way.