ITL Suite

“Real-time operations are increasingly becoming the standard. Tax must be ‘first-time-right’; in this day and age, mistakes simply aren’t acceptable.”

Business value, scalability and flexibility

When it comes to indirect tax solutions, CFOs welcome those that are able to respond quickly to changing business realities. Furthermore, scalability is becoming a key requirement. The foundations for further development and growth must first be laid internally. In other words, business processes and systems must be configured properly. However, firms will also have other short-term and long-term ambitions. A good indirect tax solution should therefore already be prepared for future developments regarding, for example, sustainability or industrial standards.

Real time will be the standard

The technical landscape has become more sophisticated with real-time operation tracking as the norm. Tax must be first-time-right as mistakes simply are not acceptable. Furthermore, tax authorities are increasingly linked directly to businesses. In some countries, invoices must first go to the tax authorities for verification before being sent to the customer. However, in other countries, matters are not yet so advanced, meaning that multinationals also have to work at different speeds.

Extracting valuable management information

Correct configuration of the tax process also provides valuable management information, which would otherwise not be available. This not only benefits tax and finance departments, but can also be invaluable to the Executive Board. Indirect tax has become important to all areas and operations within businesses.

The complexity of VAT

Multinationals must determine and declare the VAT due in each country of operation, which is highly complex. VAT is interwoven with everything: purchasing, sales, inventory, finance and invoicing. Everything related to VAT affects multinationals at the heart of their business. Those seeking to improve VAT transactions must understand how a multinational company makes money, and how the company's logistics processes work. VAT systems implementation is a task for skilled specialists, particularly as such systems must also meet requirements defined by the tax authorities.

Standard solutions fall short

Many companies rely on SAP to determine and calculate the right taxes on their transactions, and to include these in their tax returns. In SAP, a tax code is added to a transaction. This indicates the VAT percentage in a particular country, and thus how much VAT is added to the invoice. However, SAP has a limited decision model for indirect tax determination. This causes problems for organisations that operate in supply chains involving multiple parties.

Standard SAP simply does not have the ability to look across a chain transaction and base its decision on all relevant tax drivers of all legs in the chain. In practice, this often leads to unmanageable work-arounds in IT systems, and to more complex and labour-intensive processes.

ITL offers a smart way to enhance the standard SAP solution with SAP-certified add-ons.

How do you get VAT first-time right?

VAT processing has changed as more and more activities take place in real time. Currently, many organizations work with e-invoicing, whereby digital integration with tax authorities already takes place during the month. In some countries, every outgoing invoice (and the corresponding VAT) is reported to the tax authorities immediately. This means there is no longer an opportunity to make corrections at the end of the month. Our ITL Suite solution helps ensure every VAT calculation is first-time-right.